Disguising the new-build tax take

Alan Hibben has a very interesting CAPX piece on the hidden regulatory costs of new-build houses in England. Interesting because it is yet another example of the remarkably furtive and opaque nature of taxation.

But they like it like that


Your new home comes with a hidden tax bill

• The buyer of a £450,000 new-build in England is paying £65,500 in public-policy costs
• Disguising the true tax take has become a political art form in modern Britain
• Buyers of new homes need to be shown where their money is going

When a household pays £450,000 for a new home in England, a striking share of that price is not paying for bricks, mortar or even land. It is paying for planning obligations, biodiversity rules, regulatory overhead and delay-driven finance costs – none of which is itemised for the family that ultimately bears the cost. Stamp duty adds to the burden, although that at least is visible on the completion statement; the rest is simply buried in the price. This opacity is not accidental. It is a core feature of modern British government, where disguising the true tax take has become a political art form.

The result is a system in which the buyer of a modest new home is quietly funding affordable housing, local roads, biodiversity credits, planning bureaucracy and the cost of navigating a slow, discretionary planning system. Yet the buyer is never shown the bill. Britain needs legislated transparency for every new-build sale, so households can finally see where their money is going.


The whole piece is well worth reading, even for those who have no intention of buying a new-build house.

A simple reform: show buyers the bill

If the British state wishes to fund affordable housing, local roads, habitat creation and planning administration through new development, it can do so. But it should do so honestly. A standardised ‘new home cost statement’ attached to every new-build sale would show the estimated per-home incidence of planning obligations, biodiversity obligations, major planning and regulatory fees and SDLT.

Burnham in 'distancing himself from Starmer mode'

Burnham in ‘listening mode’ as he launches month-long tour of UK

• Andy Burnham is embarking on a national tour throughout August to engage with the public on the cost of living crisis and gather input for his 10-year plan.
• The prime minister aims to be in “listening mode” to understand how the government can improve people's lives and address everyday financial pressures.
• Mr Burnham has already introduced measures such as cutting VAT on energy bills, reducing business rates for venues, and capping bus fares at £2.
• He is expected to unveil further cost-of-living measures to provide “breathing space” for families.
• Opposition parties, including the Conservatives and Reform UK, have challenged Burnham on the funding for his pledges and criticised his announcements as “tinkering”.

Again Burnham is busy distancing himself from Keir Starmer who was notorious for not being a 'listener' so Team Burnham decides their man has to become a 'listener'. 

Opposition parties call it 'tinkering', which it is, but something has to carry the 'listening' narrative and at the moment tinkering with little effect does that.

There will be lots of 'listening' photo ops too, they are the main point of it. 

  

Obvious isn't enough

A surprisingly interesting gov.uk report on the bureaucratic moves which have to be made before Aldi and Lidl can be formally classed as 'Large Grocery Retailers' under rules set out in the Groceries Market Investigation (Controlled Land) Order 2010.

Aldi and Lidl should be subject to the same rules as major supermarkets

• CMA proposes to prevent Aldi and Lidl from blocking rival supermarkets opening close to their stores
• Provisional decisions find that Aldi, Lidl GB and Lidl NI are ‘Large Grocery Retailers’
• CMA is seeking views before making a final decision

Following a review, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has provisionally decided that Aldi, Lidl GB and Lidl NI should be subject to rules set out in the Groceries Market Investigation (Controlled Land) Order 2010, which already apply to the UK’s biggest supermarket chains.

The Order is designed to stop ‘Large Grocery Retailers’ (LGRs) from using land agreements to make it harder for rival supermarkets to open nearby – in particular through the use of restrictive covenants and exclusivity arrangements. The rules ensure supermarkets compete freely – and ultimately ensure shoppers have more choice about where to buy, and how much to pay for, their groceries.

Cambridge had been hoping to just wait out the news cycle

 

Aftermath

The aftermath of the Jason Arday debacle could be interesting. Progressives seem to be even more vocal than usual but not profoundly surprised at such a conspicuous failure of DEI. The ideology stands firm. Of course there may be a new resolve to foresee what DEI clearly does not allow them to foresee – not overtly.

More generally, modern progressives cannot or will not navigate their way out of ideological debacles or even ideological insanity. A time is upon us when a progressive Establishment cannot navigate the state by avoiding even the most obvious debacles which happen to be missing from their ideological radar. The debacles duly arrive, Jason Arday is one of them.

The general progressive Establishment answer is not to upgrade the radar, but to dump the mounting consequences of ideological failure onto the backs of those who do what needs doing and keep the show on the road.

It isn't going to work.

Across the River

A video which illustrates the fascinating absurdity of North Korea rather well, a monumental pyramid of absurdity with an absurd, waddling despot perched on the top.

One step at a time

Digital driving licence ‘ready for rollout’

An annual report published by the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency claims that, following initial early tests, the new virtual document is primed to deploy to millions of people

Some 18 months after first being promised, a new digital driving licence is “ready for rollout”, according to government documents.

As part of a wider suite of virtual credentials being created by various Whitehall agencies – including a new digital veterans’ card, and planned electronic versions of the likes of National Insurance cards and marriage and death certificates – ministers stated in January 2025 that an initial version of a digital driving licence would be available by the end of that year. Government intends that citizens will be able to store all these formal documents in a newly created GOV.UK Wallet – that will operate in much the same way as similar platforms from Apple and Google...

Other new online services created in FY26 include “a new digital portal with the ability, for the first time, to deal with over 1,000 medical conditions” that need to be declared by drivers.

I'm incompetent, Beth, is the actual answer

Jess Phillips: I hated being in government

The former minister spoke to Sky's Electoral Dysfunction about what it was like being inside government and why it's not on track to hit one of its key targets.

Asked by Sky's political editor, Beth Rigby, whether she would ever go back into government, Ms Phillips said she wouldn't.

"I don't think I'm suited to it, Beth, is the actual answer... I won't go back in and do more of the same. So no is the answer," she said.

If you lie on your CV, do you have to give your wages back?

 

I wouldn’t like to fall into your clutches

French Greens leader calls for ban on X during elections

Marine Tondelier, national secretary of the French Greens and 2027 presidential candidate, has called for the possibility of banning the social network X during election periods if foreign interference is detected.

In an interview with Libération, Tondelier described X as a “source of fake news” with a “rigged algorithm” that exerts a more structural and daily impact on disinformation than discrete foreign influence operations.

She argued that the platform, owned by Elon Musk, should be treated as a content editor rather than a neutral intermediary.


I wouldn’t like to fall into your clutches, my friend, altogether: or to give your benevolence a chance to condemn me.

D. H. Lawrence - Kangaroo (1923)

Ed on peculiar relationships

Ed Miliband blanks reporter asking him about previous comments calling Trump ‘racist’

In 2016, Miliband had been searing in his criticism of Trump during his first term as president.

He said: “The idea that we share values with a racist, misogynistic, self-confessed groper beggars belief.”

In following years, Miliband also said Trump had “lowered the bar for idiocy” and called out his “peculiar relationship with Russia and most of all with the truth.”

As Matthews asked Miliband about these comments, the foreign secretary gave the journalist no response.


As it's Ed Miliband we must expect some peculiar relationships with language, particularly his own words. He's an ambitious professional politician who may yet have his eye on No.10, but this was the language of progressive media with clicks to harvest. He may well wallow in the language privately, but airing it in public certainly "lowered the bar for idiocy".


In this stupid world most people never consider that a thing is good to be done unless it is done by their own set.

George Eliot - Middlemarch (1871-72)

Ed has never offered us any reason to think he is aware of a world beyond the narrow language of his his own set, yet we are invited to suppose he is a professional politician, currently filling the role of UK Foreign Secretary, one of the Great Offices of State.

He could try politics, but which party?

University of Cambridge professor resigns amid plagiarism allegations

• Professor Jason Arday has resigned as a professor of sociology at the University of Cambridge following an investigation into his qualifications and honorary appointments.
• The university's inquiry began after 'new information' emerged, with media reports alleging plagiarism in his PhD thesis and other research.
• Questions were also raised about other claims made by Professor Arday, including running 600 miles in six days and raising £5.5m for charity.
• In a letter to colleagues, Professor Arday stated that the 'relentless accusations, speculation and public commentary' had taken a profound toll on him, leading him to step away.
• Both the University of Cambridge and Jesus College are conducting separate, ongoing investigations into the matters surrounding Professor Arday.

COP33 hits an iceberg

 

India to Climate Cartel: Count Us Out! – ‘Explicit rejection of global net zero movement…has walked away from its bid to host UN’s COP33’

The narrative of a rapidly degrading Indian environment due to energy consumption is demonstrably false.

By Vijay Jayaraj

Excerpt: Sometimes a story gets buried not because editors conspire against it, but because the news cycle has room for only one crisis at a time. This year the big news has been the Iran war. But even accounting for competing headlines, the silence around a genuinely consequential development is telling.

And that is the story of India’s explicit rejection of the global net zero movement. India has walked away from its bid to host the COP33 UN climate conference, and the world’s climate press has treated it as a footnote rather than the signal it is.

Why more cells won’t fix the prisons crisis

Former Staffordshire police officer William Tittensor has an interesting CAPX piece on the state of UK prisons. Well worth reading. 

I have no personal experience of prisons, thought I'd add that, but perhaps it is also worth adding that many major public institutions seen to exist in a permanent state of crisis.


Why more cells won’t fix the prisons crisis

• Since 1986 the prison population has more than doubled, and the average sentence has increased from 11 to 20 months
• Prisoners participating in educational programmes are 7.5 percentage points less likely to reoffend
• Many prison workshops fail to provide any formal qualifications at all, limiting employment opportunities on release

Britain’s prisons are at breaking point. This month, 85,840 people are currently detained across prisons in England and Wales, with the estate operating at over 96% capacity. In 2023, 66% of prisons were operating above their original design capacity...

Prison’s purpose should be to ensure that those leaving custody are equipped to lead a law-abiding life, facilitating their re-integration into the social and economic fabric of society. The evidence, however, presents a grim picture. In the UK, almost 40% of offenders will reoffend within two years of being released from custody. We perform poorly compared to our European counterparts; the Netherlands and Austria enjoy a reoffending rate of less than 25%, while Norway’s is just 17.6%.

The Fata Morgana of Liberty

Three quotes on that elusive state we call 'liberty'.

Most people have no more definite idea of liberty than that it consists in being compelled by law to do as they like.

Ambrose Bierce - The Fiend's Delight (1872)

In fact, the more I think upon it the more I am convinced that the most important thing in any social system is the protection of the individual—personal liberty: freedom of contract: right to enjoy in safety what his ability, his enterprise, and his dexterity may gain for him.'

Walter Besant - The Ivory Gate (1892)

And this is the Fata Morgana of Liberty, or Freedom. She may lead you very definitely away from to-day's prison. But she also very definitely leads you towards some other prison. Liberty is a changing of prisons, to people who seek only liberty.

D. H. Lawrence and M. L. Skinner - The Boy in the Bush (1924)

Every World Land Speed Record Car (1898–2026)

 

Ensuring the government functions normally

Burnham heading on holiday two weeks after becoming prime minister

• Prime minister Andy Burnham is taking an overseas holiday after just over two weeks in office, having assumed the role on 20 July.
• Despite his absence from Downing Street, officials state he will remain in direct contact and continue meetings, ensuring the government functions normally.
• During his initial fortnight, Mr Burnham made numerous policy announcements, including pledges to remove VAT from electricity bills, end rough sleeping, and reinstate a £2 bus fare cap.
• He also initiated cross-party talks on social care, vowed to tackle small boat crossings, cut business rates for pubs, and established No 10 North.

Not much is it? Even if we search around for reasons to be positive, it's still not much. 

It's also worth mentioning that we don't want a government that functions 'normally', piddling around with trivial adjustments, petty restrictions and empty promises. We know the promises are empty because they always are - that's just one of the problems.

Maybe when Mr Burnham returns from his hols we'll see bets being taken on who could be the next Labour Prime Minister. 

Greek Irony

Wind farm cables triggered huge wildfire in Greece

The blaze began on Friday morning near Agios Vasileios in the Boeotia region at a site known as Mavro Spithari.

Greek authorities have arrested two people after investigators concluded that sparks from electricity cables linked to a private wind farm ignited a major wildfire that has been burning for three days west of Athens...

A similar incident involving the same network occurred only weeks earlier, about 100 metres from the current ignition point, burning around 60 acres before being contained.

Straitjacket

Education secretary vows to undo Gove’s ‘straitjacket’ school reforms

Education Secretary Lucy Powell says schools are stuck in a “straitjacket” of academic prioritisation, hindering children’s potential.

She has announced a review into whether teaching adequately prepares pupils for their futures, signalling a move to undo reforms implemented by Michael Gove.

Writing in The Times, Ms Powell said: “The one-size-fits-all approach simply doesn’t suit all children. For some it’s become a straitjacket. A straitjacket that has left too many being branded a failure — again and again — instead of being able to realise their potential.”

She intends to take a “fresh look at what we are teaching our children and whether we are equipping them for their lives ahead” as part of efforts to reverse Mr Gove’s education policies.


We have a review of course, but we we also have Michael Gove as the Tory to blame. To go with that we have a "one-size-fits-all approach" as the approach to blame even though this has been the Fabian dealing-with-the-plebs approach for over a century.

We also have the Freudian slip, a "straitjacket." That's another clue that more money will be needed, from you, via increased taxes, for the new straitjacket.

Oh yes - we also have a "fresh look at what we are teaching our children and whether we are equipping them for their lives ahead”, but that's just the usual sinister hint about taking a firmer grip on the approved political background to schooling.

Has 'laser-focused' been downgraded?

Mahmood ‘laser-like focused’ on securing UK’s border

The Home Secretary was touring the National Crime Agency’s offices in Stratford, east London.

Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood said she was “laser-like focused” and will do “whatever it takes” to secure the country’s border, as she toured the National Crime Agency’s (NCA) offices in Stratford, east London.

Speaking to reporters on Sunday afternoon, Ms Mahmood said: “I think the most important thing that people need to hear from their Home Secretary is that I’m doing whatever it takes to secure our border.

“And that is what I’ve been absolutely laser-like focused on from the moment I became the Home Secretary, taking all of the measures that I know are needed in order to secure our border.”

As we know, under the Starmer regime, 'laser-focused' was the zippy metaphor for Ministerial determination to make something happen. 

It would be disappointing to find that 'laser-like focused' is the poor relation of 'laser-focused', akin to something such as pork-like sausages, milk-like coffee additive or meat-like pie filling.

Gosh - a Rachel Reeves script

John Healey vows to protect the public from price gouging

• Chancellor John Healey announced he will be closely monitoring for price gouging at petrol pumps and in supermarkets, as the war in Iran continues to affect prices.
• Healey conceded that the government ”can’t completely stop the squeeze” on families and businesses but signalled readiness to intervene against unfair price rises.

Reeves reveals plan to protect public from unfair Iran war price hikes

A crackdown on companies profiteering from the Iran war at the expense of millions of Brits is among cost-of-living plans announced by Rachel Reeves today.

The Chancellor vowed that the Government would guard against unfair price rises amid fears over surging oil and fuel costs sparked by Donald Trump’s conflict in the Middle East.

The Fabian Society's Goal

 

A headline and one of the comments

The unabashed socialist filling Andy Burnham’s mayoral shoes

There are only two really famous people from Burnage in Manchester, neither of them politicians. The suburb is the birthplace of Oasis’s Gallagher brothers, who put Manchester on the map in the mid-1990s, back when Andy Burnham was just another face in the crowd at the Hacienda.

Thirty years on, however, another Burnage resident is in the spotlight. Step forward, Bev Craig, the local Labour councillor who has replaced Burnham as Manchester’s mayor after his departure to Downing Street.



Scott Davies

Complete waste of time all these Mayoral offices, just another layer of useless government to add to the layer upon layer of district councils, local councils, city councils, county councils, PCCs, quangos, the civil service the government itself, committees.....all of it utterly useless. Just look at the state of the country. 

I use public transport in Greater Manchester and like public transport in the rest of the UK its a total shambles. I end up walking half the time or have to take a taxi.

It is a strange desire to seek Power

   

Men in Great Place are thrice Servants: Servants of the Sovereign or State; Servants of Fame; and Servants of Business. So as they have no Freedom, either in their Persons, nor in their Actions, nor in their Times. It is a strange desire to seek Power, and to lose Liberty; or to seek Power over others, and to lose Power over a Mans self. The Rising unto Place is laborious; and by Pains men come to greater Pains: and it is sometimes base; and by Indignities men come to Dignities. The Standing is Slippery, and the Regress is either a Downfall or at least an Eclipse, which is a melancholy thing. 

Sir Francis Bacon – Essays – Holt edition 1701

BP legs it

SNP calls for 'decisive action' as BP reveals plan to sell North Sea operations

The firm announced on Friday its operations in the UK Continental Shelf (UKCS) would be “better positioned as part of another company”...

Responding to the news, UK Energy Secretary Miatta Fahnbulleh said: “I’m in close contact with BP and have made clear that my priority is ensuring that the workers and local community are protected during this sale process.

“The North Sea is a vital national asset and we will take a pragmatic approach, recognising that oil and gas will be part of our energy mix for years to come.

“I’m focused on doing right by the workers in the North Sea who have powered this country for generations.”


Another angle -


Tax Regime and Investment Climate

As opposed to the other major North Sea oil and gas producer Norway, Britain's tax regime on the industry in recent years has been marked by successive changes, decried by oil and gas companies for deterring investment.

"This decision is another stark reminder that confidence in the UK Continental Shelf has been badly shaken after years of policy uncertainty, punitive taxation and mixed messages about the future of the industry," said Russell Borthwick, chief of the Aberdeen & Grampian Chamber of Commerce, which comprises many UK oil and gas producers.

Some Blairs are more equal than others

Tim Blair has an incisively entertaining Quadrant piece on an extremely late confession by Tony Blair -

 

"We can’t solve climate change by imposing costs on our own businesses and consumers when the rest of the world is not doing the same."

Indeed we can't. The whole piece is well worth reading.


Side Quests and Symbolic Gestures

Some Blairs are more equal than others. Tony Blair, for example, isn’t the most rapid of our clan when it comes to gaining awareness of plainly observable facts.

When he catches up, though, it’s a matter for at least some familial pride. It’s kind of like watching your child take their very first steps—except they’re eight years old and still a bit wobbly.

The other day, former British Prime Minister Blair said something that until recently was for his UK Labour Party basically unsayable. He told a British radio host that Labour should drop its obsession with climate change.

The host, seeking clarification on this evident heresy, asked if Blair was actually calling for the British government to completely abandon its green energy targets—which according to modern leftist fable will quickly lead us to a net zero holy land.

“Yes, I am,” Blair replied, gloriously, “because Britain’s emissions are under one per cent of global emissions. We can’t solve climate change by imposing costs on our own businesses and consumers when the rest of the world is not doing the same.”

Pegs and Holes

This video kicked off a train of thought where I imagined a hierarchy represented by a triangular wooden board with holes in it and wooden pegs in the holes. 

Over the years an apex peg may become loose, fall out and be lost. A new peg from a hole further down the board is placed in the vacant hole – and so on down the board. The holes endure, the pegs don't.

Can you deny grass?

Federal scientist picked by Trump fights back at being called a ‘climate denier’ – ‘How exactly do you deny a noun? Can you deny baseball? Can you deny grass? Can you deny mountains? Climate exists’

Dr. Matthew M. Wielicki, Director – United States Global Change Research Program: “How can I simultaneously ‘deny climate change’ while constantly talking about past climate changes, ice ages, warm periods, droughts, floods, and the natural variability recorded throughout Earth’s history?”

A neat way of putting it, there are lots of other examples using proper nouns.

Can you deny Ed Miliband?

Can you deny the BBC?

Can you deny the Guardian?

Guided mindfulness works and other twaddle

Meet the new energy minister who believes lower growth is “good news”

Before becoming an MP, Katie White, the new energy minister advocated for GPs to treat “climate grief” and councils to pay for “guided mindfulness works”, reveals Arthur Reynolds

Last week, I brought news of our new Energy Secretary Miatta Fahnbulleh’s crusade against cars.

Since then, things have gotten worse. Andy Burnham has made a former professional climate campaigner her number two.


It's worth making a valiant attempt to imagine suggesting that GPs should treat climate grief.

It's worth making another valiant attempt to imagine suggesting that councils should pay for guided mindfulness works.

It's worth making yet another valiant attempt to imagine appointing Katie White as Energy Secretary.

It's worth making a final valiant attempt to imagine voting for this person after having checked her "career".

Miracle

Cambridge’s diversity poster boy faces questions over ‘miracle’ 600-mile run

The Cambridge professor at the centre of a plagiarism row is facing questions over claims he has made about his athletic prowess and charity fundraising.

Prof Jason Arday says he once ran 600 miles in six days for charity, 300 miles in three days, and 30 marathons in 35 days, partly with a broken leg.

But experts in ultra-distance running have cast doubt on his claims, expressing surprise that he is not known in the ultra-distance community despite achievements that would put him among the world's top athletes.

Prof Arday also claims to have been a professional footballer and snooker player, and to have raised £5.5m for more than 70 charities.

The mess we're in

Carers should be best paid in society, not the worst, says Burnham

Carers should be the best paid people in society, not the worst, Andy Burnham has said as he set out plans for sweeping reform of the social care system.

The prime minister said that social care in England was as unfair as American healthcare as he reflected on the many people forced to whittle down their pensions and savings to care for family members due to the current system...

The prime minister - who teared up as he spoke about his father who is currently receiving care for Alzheimer’s - said it was a “major dereliction of public duty” that politicians had failed for decades to resolve the crisis in social care.


By gum, Burnham is certainly distancing himself from Starmer the uncaring automaton. Taking it too far in my view, bringing in his unfortunate father and talking about a "major dereliction of public duty”. Somewhat distasteful I reckon, but he is a politician.

We may go on to ask what a "public duty" is, but it would be unwise to expect a coherent response other than more words embedded in an economically and socially incoherent ideology.

The mess we're in runs deeper than this.

Burnham calls the Uniparty together

Burnham to hold cross-party talks on fixing crisis in adult social care

Andy Burnham will hold a cross-party meeting to discuss tackling the crisis in adult social care, as he pledged to “put everything I’ve got” into fixing the system.

Both the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats accepted the Prime Minister’s invitation “to build that spirit of collaboration from the start”, however, Nigel Farage hit out at Mr Burnham for ignoring Reform UK.

Mr Burnham said governments have, for decades, failed to tackle reform of social care in England, seeing it as “too risky, too difficult, and too complicated”.

Not only has Burnham called the Uniparty together, he has defined it - as Nigel Farage points out. Farage is probably right about a plan to increase taxes too, Burnham is trying to share responsibility with the rest of the Uniparty. 


Mr Farage criticised the Prime Minister for not extending an invite to his party, which “led over 300 national opinion polls and represents thousands of councillors and millions of Britons across the country”.

He claimed it is “uniparty in action”, adding: “It’s now clear that Burnham is conspiring behind closed doors with the failed political establishment to foist further tax rises on the country.”

As trust in the Church of England collapses

Rev Fergus Butler-Gallie has a very interesting Critic piece on the corrosive effect of managerialism within the Church of England. 

Missionaries, not management consultants

As trust in the Church of England collapses, its leaders are prescribing more of the very managerialism that created the problem

The dust is only just beginning to settle from General Synod. I know it might sound preposterous to talk about the Church of England’s parliament in terms redolent of a gunfight in the Old West: gunfights in the Old West were often conducted in a friendlier spirit.

There were the usual vicious fights about sex, as bishops said one thing and then voted in a completely different way. There was an exceptionally unedifying scrap over a report into the State of Israel, which has possibly done serious harm to interfaith relationships. There was even a bit of rancour about Net Zero. A full house for 2026 Britain!

It is often said that the Church doesn’t represent the nation any more. Au contraire: this Synod showed it was the perfect mirror to the badly governed, divided and petty nation which it seeks to serve.

The whole piece is well worth reading even for long-time outsiders - the problem is severe enough to be clearly visible from the outside. 

The lack of trust in this, the institution par excellence of the nation ought to be a matter of national concern. The Church of England is in a bad state and it is increasingly clear that it cannot be trusted to appoint the leaders or engender the culture required to get itself out of that mess. That isn’t just an internal Church problem but, once again, shows that the Church’s problems are the nation’s too.

I find it difficult to really understand what happened behind the scenes

New Schuman roundabout is 'worst' possible outcome, says architect

The symbolic EU plaza has become a barren concrete lagoon, after three years of building work

  

Plan                                          Outcome

The man who redesigned the iconic Schuman roundabout, at the heart of the European quarter, has delivered a scathing verdict on the final result.

“We ended up really with the square that nobody wanted,” said Francis De Wolf, the leading Belgian architect on the project, told Euractiv...

“Now it’s too late in a way,” he said. It’s very unrealistic to imagine the canopy can still be built, he said, as it would require extensive building work to attach the foundations to the tunnels beneath the roundabout. “You’d have to break open the whole square again.”

De Wolf is baffled about how the project turned out so badly. “I’m not a politician … and I find it difficult to really understand what happened behind the scenes.”

One for Ed and Miatta

What’s behind North Korea’s coal industry push?

From miner housing to carbon neutrality, North Korea's coal strategy carries implications well beyond its borders

North Korea held the second plenary session of the ninth Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea from June 20 to 22. According to Rodong Sinmun, the party’s official newspaper, the meeting’s purpose was to review North Korea’s progress on 2026 party and state policies. These policies stem from strategic tasks set by the Ninth Party Congress and the new five year plan. The party also said it aimed to discuss and resolve pressing issues needed to put socialist construction on a stable, sustained path of development.

The second agenda item at the plenary session was titled “On Boosting the Coal Industry and Transforming Coal Mining Towns Nationwide.” North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said overcoming the coal sector’s remaining backwardness is an urgent task for the successful completion of the new five year plan.

What we need to counteract this horrific development is a determined visit to North Korea by a large delegation of UK climate protesters with their placards, soup and orange powder. This should attract Kim's attention and make him think again.

None of them would come back of course, a few people may see this as a disadvantage.


On March 15 this year, Kim visited the Chonsong Youth Coal Mine, part of the Sunchon Youth Coal Mining Complex in South Pyongan province, where he voted in Supreme People’s Assembly elections and met with miners. “For people to live, grain farming must go well,” he said. “For the state to live, coal farming must go well. Coal has been and remains the heart of our industry and the engine of our self-reliant economic development.”

Something to do with leopards and spots

Ed Miliband indicates development and climate will be at heart of UK foreign policy

Britain’s foreign secretary, Ed Miliband, is to indicate he will put the climate crisis and overseas development at the heart of UK international relations by taking up the country’s seat on the board at the World Bank.

The position, which is usually delegated to a junior minister, means Miliband will play an active role in shaping the changes to the World Bank that developing countries have called for, and ensuring the climate remains a core focus for overseas aid.

Miliband, who was energy and net zero secretary under Keir Starmer, will say: “International development is not an add-on to British foreign policy – it is central to it. By taking on the role of UK governor to the World Bank, I want to send an unambiguous signal that this government is serious about its global leadership on development and climate.”

The position is usually delegated to a junior minister? Didn't take Ed long to spot the opportunity and hop into the new role and the headlines. We may assume that he will have known about this move before accepting the role of Foreign Secretary and presumably hopes to pull Miatta Fahnbulleh's sustainability strings too, from a globalist position.

Maybe Burnham doesn't care about Ed's machinations and sees this move as a lone voice from a mysterious global outfit most voters don't understand. 

Yet in spite of his heavy focus on Manchester and repeated guff about the cost of living, Burnham is likely to be another globalist Prime Minister. No doubt we'll soon see how things pan out for Mad Ed.

The Kakistocracy

David King has a whimsical Quadrant piece on Australia as a Kakistocracy, entangled as it still is in Net Zero and the the ludicrous folly of Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS).

The whole piece is well worth reading as we in the UK wonder if Miatta Fahnbulleh will turn out to be merely another servant of the UK Kakistocracy and  just as absurdly destructive as Ed Miliband.

An Ironic Blessing of ‘Atrocious Science’

While the tide finally seems to be turning in regard to realization of the futility of “Net Zero” – not only on economic grounds, but also because there is compelling scientific evidence that if accomplished it would have negligible effect on climate – there is an obstinate vocal rump who cannot, or just do not want to accept the scientific reality. Not least amongst them are our Chris Bowen and the UK’s Ed Milliband, two ministers driving policy agendas that amount to economic euthanasia.

The case against anthropogenic emissions having a material effect on climate spans observational data, theoretical analysis, and empirical (laboratory) testing ( see The Science is Settled); counter arguments appear to rely entirely on computer modeling of temperature even though model predictions have failed to match observed temperatures in both forecast and, surprisingly, hindcast. Sadly, persistence with with decarbonization/net zero policy agendas suggests that my earlier assessment that the Lucky Country is now a Kakistocracy (Green Idiocy’s Consequences) is increasingly apposite. These agendas have polluted our taxation systems, education priorities, corporate reporting obligations, research funding priorities, and more.

The 24-hour news cycle

The 24-hour news cycle is ruining politics

The relentless 24-hour news cycle and social media landscape have fundamentally altered political discourse by prioritizing quick, performative reactions over thoughtful deliberation, says Emma Revell

Of course, rolling news isn’t going anywhere. Unless politicians lose all semblance of control of their worst nannying instincts, neither is social media. And before we blame the hacks crowded on the Downing Street pavement, it’s worth remembering they’re only there because we’re watching. The doorstep circus runs on our attention. If we actually wanted politicians to think before they spoke, we might need to give them a moment in which to do it.

Some of us aren't watching though. Maybe public interest in 'the news' is dwindling and this also explains the 24-hour news cycle. 

Maybe it's big media engaged in frantic competition with social media and the smaller guys. The BBC is certainly becoming frantic in its attempts to avoid relying on a voluntary subscription model. 

Removed from the ballot paper

Klaus Bastian has an interesting Blackout News piece on political exclusion in Germany.

Exclusion from voting: Political opponents have AfD candidates removed from the ballot paper

Lower Saxony, July 2026: The exclusion of Bundestag member Martin Sichert from the election shows how political competition can be eliminated even before a vote. Reinhild Goes initially did not receive approval despite a recommendation for admission by the local election officer. The AfD district administrator candidate Stephan Bothe is also threatened with exclusion according to a recommendation of the Ministry of the Interior. On the other hand, the election committees admitted Jessica Schülke in Hanover and Robert Preuß in Gifhorn. The red-green local electoral law allows the evaluation of material from the Office for the Protection of the Constitution and political statements. Subsequently, party-political election committees decide on competing candidates. A full judicial review often only follows after the election. At the same time, UN Special Rapporteur Irene Khan criticizes such vague extremism assessments as "incompatible with international standards."

Ludwigshafen provided the blueprint for the exclusion from the election

Joachim Paul was not allowed to run in the mayoral election in Ludwigshafen in 2025. The election committee relied on material from the Office for the Protection of the Constitution. But the administrative courts did not fully examine the allegations before the vote. Instead, they referred Paul to the later election scrutiny procedure. Therefore, the election took place without the candidate of a party that was not banned.

The Politics Cartel

The word ‘Uniparty’ has been around for decades, especially in the US, but it’s a useful word here in the UK too. As any political sceptic knows, there is much to be said for viewing UK politics as a cartel which fixes the financial and political cost of being a supine voter– the Uniparty.

A few UK political parties offer only limited competition within cartel boundaries which are not explicit within their debates, manifestos or policies. Parties promote their particular political brand, but only within Uniparty boundaries and in so doing they fix the cost of being a supine voter - the cartel aspect.

This much is obvious enough, “they are all the same” is far from being an uncommon public comment at election time. Yet only a minority of voters seem to treat their frustration as being due a permanent political cartel where close party alignment is a feature, not a fault. Only a minority of voters seem to view the main political parties as one party and refer to it by a single name such as the Uniparty.

It is also clear, but clearly not clear enough, that the entire Establishment is a social and political cartel called rather vaguely the Elite, the Blob, the Swamp, the Kleptocracy or one of a number of other names. Or just the Establishment.

Unfortunately we are held back by language. The Establishment, the Uniparty, the mainstream media all have a tight grip on popular language, on how we articulate what goes on in the world of politics, how we articulate it to others and even to ourselves.

For example, within the boundaries of the Uniparty cartel, our current UK Prime Minister is described as a member of the Labour Party, which he is in a formal sense, but this means less than is usually assumed. He promotes himself and his party within constrained narratives formulated as typically Labour Party narratives, but always within Uniparty boundaries. What is not allowed is to change the way things are done in any radical way.

In other words, Andrew Burnham is the Uniparty Prime Minister from what we might call the Labour branch, but that is not what we hear from mainstream media. Neither do we usually hear it said that he represents the Establishment, the Blob, Davos, globalism, the Kleptocracy or whatever.

Powerfully useful words such as Uniparty are successfully relegated to the fringes of UK political discourse. The political cartel is successfully disguised because the main political parties do have different agendas, but within ill-defined but quite definite Uniparty and therefore Establishment boundaries.

Hence a major UK political question - where does Reform stand in all this?

 

Who pays for Manchesterism?

Shimeon Lee has a useful Critic piece on some of the ways in which Andrew Burnham's notion of “Manchesterism” is mostly about wasting other people's money. 

The whole piece is well worth reading for any UK citizen who feels unduly cheerful at the moment.


Who pays for Manchesterism?

Burnham spent nine years extracting money from Westminster, now he’ll be reaching directly into taxpayers’ pockets

Andy Burnham is now Prime Minister, and the country soon to discover what “Manchesterism” means when applied to the British state. Burnham’s nine years as mayor, alongside his earlier national record, offer a clear guide to the instincts he is likely to bring to No.10: a willingness to raise taxes, expand the state and prioritise policies that sound good but ultimately deliver poor value for money.

It is revealing that after being elected mayor in 2017, one of Burnham’s first acts was to impose a new charge on households in Greater Manchester. The new mayoral precept was initially set at £8 for the average band D property, funding the mayoral operation, including Burnham’s £110,000 salary. As so often happens with new charges, it did not remain modest for long. The charge more than doubled the following year, rising again in 2020-21, 2022-23, 2025-26 and 2026-27. By the time Burnham resigned to contest the Makerfield by-election, it had risen to £61.75, nearly eight times the original amount in less than a decade.

As residents paid more, the mayor built an increasingly elaborate network of advisers, commissioners and panels funded by taxpayers. These included a young person’s advisor paid £500 per day, a transport commissioner and an active travel commissioner each paid £650 per day, and an LGBTQ+ advisor paid £177 per day. He also established seven equality panels facilitated by “culturally appropriate organisations” which cost £392,435 a year. Taxpayers can only speculate how much larger that ecosystem could become when he takes control of Whitehall.

When 'Harder' means 'Impossible'

Angela Rayner rules out rent controls as she admits 1.5million home pledge getting harder to meet

She told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “It certainly got more challenging, and we’ve seen things like construction costs go up etc, which has had a real negative impact on that.

“But I’m not dropping it. I’m just saying that it is a really difficult stretched target.”

Pressed again, she said: “Yeah, I’m going to keep the target, but it’s like me saying I’m going to run the London Marathon in under five hours.

“That would be a real challenge for me, but I’d do it… Look, I am straight talking.

As Angela accepted this thoroughly poisoned chalice we may as well assume that she doesn't expect to be the one holding it when the next general election descends on us.  

Maybe she doesn't expect Burnham to be the one dishing out ministerial jobs by then either.

  

Shameless cherry-picking

Nigel Farage is now even less popular than Starmer just before his resignation

Nigel Farage’s popularity among the public has plummeted to its lowest level in the past ten years, a new YouGov survey has found, placing him below Keir Starmer just before the PM resigned.

The pollster found just 22% have a favourable view of the Reform UK leader, while 68% are unfavourable – including 56% who say they are very unfavourable.

That 46% gap between his negative and positive rating is bigger than the 45% recorded by Starmer before he announced he was stepping down.


A chap does not have to support Farage in order to notice that this is shameless cherry-picking. The story is correct if you choose a YouGov poll and ignore polls from Deltapoll, Opinium, More in Common, Survation, Freshwater Strategy and Ipsos.

The variation in results is very large too, that would be worth mentioning, but of course data uncertainties are not what the story is about.

Easily checked too.

Worth a reminder in these milk-livered times

Our brand-new Burnham government is surely a reminder of various Shakespearian insult generators out there on the internet. 

Worth a reminder in these milk-livered times.

Thy manners are borrowed from a goat’s backside!

Thy wits are as sharp as a mashed turnip!

Thy tongue flaps more than a sailor's laundry!

Thou jarring, milk-livered hobbledehoy!

Source - but there are others

It's going to be stunts and buses all the way down

Andy Burnham says £2 bus fare cap 'will put money in people's pockets'

 

Source

Prompted by casual interest, I had a quick gander at the number of photo op images showing Burnham with a bus - there are loads of them. 

I bet he collects them.

A barefoot protest would be more convincing

Approval of new drilling in North Sea ‘would break Labour’s manifesto’

Protesters, who were dressed as firefighters in front of a banner reading ‘world on fire’, gathered in London.

 

Source

Could be wrong, but from what I see those people are wearing shoes mostly made from oil-derived products such as polyurethane, nylon and EVA.

A barefoot protest would be more convincing. Not much more convincing in summer though.

A world of difference

Several people dismissed from French ministries after positive drug tests

Several people working in French ministerial offices and the wider state administration have been removed from their positions after testing positive for drugs, Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu has confirmed.

The revelation comes after Lecornu ordered an unprecedented campaign of surprise and mandatory saliva tests among ministerial staff, senior civil servants and officials with access to sensitive information.

“There have been positive tests, and people have been removed from their positions,” Lecornu said, without giving a precise number or identifying those involved.

There is a world of difference as to the resulting knowledge between a cursory observation that notes only generalities and an attentive examination that considers particular details.

R. Austin Freeman - The Surprising Experiences of Mr. Shuttlebury Cobb (1927)

The Burnham regime seems to be crumbling already

Trump 'will not forget' Miliband criticism as appointment sparks anger

• Ed Miliband's appointment as Foreign Secretary under new Prime Minister Andy Burnham has caused the White House to be “deeply concerned.”
• Sources close to President Donald Trump warn he "will not forget" Miliband's past scathing criticisms, including calling him a "racist, misogynistic, self-confessed groper."
• Miliband is viewed in Washington as an "unreasonable 'nut zero' extremist" due to his climate stance and perceived blocking of North Sea oil production.

Naturally Miliband will emit some ameliorative language to downplay his inability to govern his tongue, particularly in a role where this matters. It's a poor appointment though, a posturing extremist such as Ed Miliband should have been shown the door.

It's an indication that the Burnham regime is already showing significant cracks. He does not have an abundance of pragmatic and capable people free from damaging ideologies and seems to be unaware of it. Or he lacks the political courage to do anything about it. Cracks either way.

Angela Rayner Is Back

It's a bit early to parody Angela...

Hmm - no it isn't.

A very bad, bad, bad, bad, bad call

David Dimbleby ‘appalled’ by BBC making ‘very bad call’ to cut up to 2,000 jobs

David Dimbleby has said he is “appalled” by cuts at the BBC which will result in up to 2,000 people losing their jobs.

The national broadcaster aims to make £500 million in savings over two years, with job cuts announced in April set to take place over the next three years.

Speaking to Radio Times, the former Question Time host, 87, expressed his dismay at the decision.

“Why on earth have they done that? The best analysis of politics, both national and international… I’m appalled. Very bad, bad, bad, bad, bad call,” he said.

Oh come on David, the dear old BBC is doing its best to insert its clammy corporate hand into the taxpayer's pocket - what more do you want?

Do we assume that a BBC subscription service would be a very bad, bad, bad, bad, bad call in your world? Does it hand over too much choice to the plebs - something like that?

Do we also assume that having to pay for a BBC licence merely to watch live events on paid subscription services such as Sky is not  a very bad, bad, bad, bad, bad call?

Let us proactively invest in some twaddle

As we have a brand new, fresh from the political hothouse Prime Minister and a proactive new wave of government decision-makers, we should look to the future and begin this fine Tuesday morning with some aspirational twaddle.

Preparing for the next wave of decision-makers

Across organisations, a generational shift is already under way. Generation Z, those born from the late 1990s onwards, are entering the workforce in growing numbers and bring with them distinct expectations, values and a redefinition of what leadership looks like.

By 2030, Gen Z and millennials will account for nearly 75% of the global workforce. Ambition has not diminished, it has evolved. As noted by Forbes, only a small proportion see leadership as an immediate goal, while a much larger cohort still aspires to senior roles over time, provided these roles align with wellbeing and sustainable workloads.

Research suggests that organisations that proactively invest in this next generation of leaders are already seeing benefits in greater adaptability, more inclusive cultures, and stronger alignment with purpose-driven work, as research links inclusive leadership and development investment to improved organisational adaptability, innovation, and employee engagement. The message is clear - preparing Gen Z for leadership is not a future consideration, it is an immediate strategic priority.

It was in 1915 the old world ended

In D. H. Lawrence’s 1923 novel Kangaroo, his main character Richard Lovat Somers realises that the Britain he once knew had ended in 1915 –

 

Awful years—’16, ’17, ’18, ’19—the years when the damage was done. The years when the world lost its real manhood. Not for lack of courage to face death. Plenty of superb courage to face death. But no courage in any man to face his own isolated soul, and abide by its decision. Easier to sacrifice oneself. So much easier!

It was in 1915 the old world ended. In the winter 1915-1916 the spirit of the old London collapsed; the city, in some way, perished, perished from being a heart of the world, and became a vortex of broken passions, lusts, hopes, fears, and horrors. The integrity of London collapsed, and the genuine debasement began, the unspeakable baseness of the press and the public voice, the reign of that bloated ignominy, John Bull.

No man who has really consciously lived through this can believe again absolutely in democracy. No man who has heard reiterated in thousands of tones from all the common people, during the crucial years of the war: “I believe in John Bull. Give me John Bull,” can ever believe that in any crisis a people can govern itself, or is ever fit to govern itself. During the crucial years of the war, the people chose, and chose Bottomleyism*. Bottom enough.

The well-bred, really cultured classes were on the whole passive resisters. They shirked their duty. It is the business of people who really know better to fight tooth and nail to keep up a standard, to hold control of authority. Laisser-aller is as guilty as the actual, stinking mongrelism it gives place to.

It was in mid-winter 1915 that Somers and Harriet went down to Cornwall. The spirit of the war—the spirit of collapse and of human ignominy, had not travelled so far yet. It came in advancing waves.

We hear so much of the bravery and horrors at the front. Brave the men were, all honour to them. It was at home the world was lost. We hear too little of the collapse of the proud human spirit at home, the triumph of sordid, rampant, raging meanness. “The bite of a jackal is blood-poisoning and mortification.” And at home stayed all the jackals, middle-aged, male and female jackals. And they bit us all. And blood-poisoning and mortification set in.

We should never have let the jackals loose, and patted them on the head. They were feeding on our death all the while.

 
D. H. Lawrence - Kangaroo (1923)

* A reference to Horatio Bottomley

Serious Scrumping

Hunger drives North Korean children to raid state orchards

Even farmworkers say the children deserve sympathy, not blame

Hunger is driving teenagers in Kwail county, South Hwanghae province, to sneak into state orchards this summer. They pick peaches and plums to eat on the spot or carry home. Guards increasingly look the other way rather than punish them. A source in the province described the pattern to Daily NK recently, pointing to worsening hunger among North Korean children in 2026.

Peaches and plums are now in season, the source said. In Kwail county, teenagers in groups of two or three have been slipping into orchards to eat fruit or take it home. “Orchard guards only shout to scare them off,” the source said. “They don’t chase after them to catch them.”

Kwail county is a hub of North Korea’s fruit industry, known mainly for apples but also producing pears, peaches, grapes, persimmons and apricots, according to the source. Most of the fruit grown there goes to central government officials and Pyongyang residents.

PM Possibles

While reflecting on the way Andrew Burnham was shoved into No 10, a chap is bound to wonder if Labour could have chosen anyone at all, not necessarily a politician. 

Someone acceptable to the Labour Party, well known and a party member of course. Yet presumably membership could have been sorted for a public figure who was not a politician but might be interested in a spell as UK Prime Minister.

For example, should they so choose, were Labour Party fixers able to nudge famous people such as Gary Lineker, Lenny Henry or Stephen Fry into giving it a go via a safe seat, just as Burnham did?

Just a thought while I finish my morning coffee.

Germany in decline

Germany in decline: Foreign media see the disintegration of infrastructure and industry

In July 2026, foreign media are increasingly reporting on Germany in decline. British and Spanish newspapers as well as international business media combine railway chaos, dilapidated bridges, Stuttgart 21 and the crisis at Volkswagen into a comprehensive picture. They describe an economy whose infrastructure is decaying, whose industry is losing its competitiveness and whose government is not initiating any reforms that really help. The criticism no longer concerns individual mishaps, but Germany's economic and state ability to act.

Germany in decline becomes the judgment of foreign media

The British magazine "The Spectator" published the article "Germany is quietly disintegrating" on July 6. The author refers to unpunctual trains, closed bridges and the threat of job cuts at Volkswagen. He describes the reaction of the federal government as a "shrug of the shoulders that is sold as a reform". Germany once embodied technical reliability and industrial strength. In the meantime, the question arises as to why Europe's largest economy is no longer able to repair its own bridges in time.

My impression from the outside is that Germany cannot elect political parties with enough nous and determination to do anything about decline. Surely the crisis at Volkswagen must have some political impact.

The political situation seems to similar to that in the UK, voting for worthwhile reform isn't happening. We've just been landed with a dud from Manchester as Prime Minister who even at this early stage seems to think going back to the 1970s is a good idea.

Nothing to do with me

PM Mark Carney Blames Canada Wildfires on — ‘Climate Change Is Everyone’s Responsibility’

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney dismissed the possibility that his government could be doing more to contain the out-of-control wildfires ravaging Ontario this week and sending toxic smoke down to flood much of the American Midwest and Northeast, demanding the United States do more to fight alleged “climate change.”

The comments, made during a press conference in Ontario, are Carney’s first in the aftermath of a torrent of outrage in the United States as millions of people were told not to leave their homes on Thursday to avoid becoming sick from inhaling Canadian fire smoke. Disillusion at the inaction by the Canadian government is also reportedly growing among the First Nations communities most directly affected by the fires, including some that have burned to the ground entirely and found little to no support from Ottawa.

Canada’s extensive forests have traditionally experienced regular summer fire seasons, controlled through indigenous methods such as controlled burns and the removal of dry, dead tree branches and other material that serves as kindling for large fires. In the past decade, as the Canadian government has largely abandoned forest management as a national policy, these fires have grown larger, more dangerous, and more polluting. The Canadian government has no federal emergency response agency and no national fire authority, leaving the country’s provinces on their own to respond to the fires.

What an odious chap Carney is, but he has at least confirmed what he is, a man who will never accept responsibility for anything he may righteously choose to disown. He has also confirmed that this is a major political attraction of the climate game, the adaptable righteousness.

Would Andrew Burnham accept at least some responsibility in similar circumstances? Probably not.

Bridgnorth Litter Pickers do it themselves

An entertaining little insight into the reality of everyday bureaucracy.

The Noodles of Power

Some interesting comments about the levers of power from former No 10 insiders - Burnham may find those levers have been softened to the consistency of noodles.

Will Andy Burnham spark an exodus of London’s middle classes?

Andy Burnham has had it easy, at least compared with what will hit him when he walks through the door of No 10.

“He’s going to get the shock of his life when he sees how degraded and different it is from what it was when he left,” says former deputy cabinet secretary Helen MacNamara. “People who haven’t been in government since 2016 are really clueless about how different it is. People feel powerless.”...

Yet Burnham has largely still to answer how he will pay for his radical reforms. Having broadly committed to Chancellor Rachel Reeves’s fiscal rules, he has ruled out ramping up borrowing and has shown few signs of making significant welfare savings.

So that leaves a third possible option — tax rises. “If he does follow through on some of his tax and spend rumours, we might actually see an exodus of people... the middle class essentially starting to go,” says Cleo Watson, deputy chief-of-staff to Boris Johnson when he was Prime Minister.

But we already know this - so do the Labour MPs who shoved Burnham into No 10.

Expect gibberish and gesticulation

Trump threatens Canada with tariffs for smoke blanketing the US

President Donald Trump on Friday threatened to impose additional tariffs on Canada, blaming the country for wildfire smoke that has blanketed large swaths of the United States.

“We are holding Canada responsible for the fact that they are not properly maintaining their Forests, and Brush therein, and the United States is being unnecessarily invaded by filthy, polluted, and unhealthy air, the quality of which is dangerous, and totally unacceptable,” the Republican president wrote on Truth Social Friday afternoon.

Trump added that he planned to call Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney to discuss how his government intends to respond.

Trump won't get much out of Carney apart from gibberish - and maybe some gesticulation.

It was a mere basic inability to front novel situations which was somehow in the dragoman; he retreated from everything difficult in a smoke of gibberish and gesticulation.

Stephen Crane - Active Service (1899)

By gum this is horribly uninspiring - he doesn't know what to do next

 

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.”

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)

An idiot’s guide to promoting “public health” policies

Christopher Snowdon has a delightfully incisive Critic piece on the authoritarian games played by those tedious food moralists who insist on promoting useless "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.”

The Atomic Trampoline

 

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

Mr Brittin stressed the need for the BBC to reinvent itself.

reinvent = entrench

And so on - BBC Newspeak, a special survival version.