Today Lord Frost has written a rather long essay for the DT, under the title “Tories can no longer avoid telling hard truths about the route out of this mess -The party stopped talking about conservative ideas, fearful of being stigmatised by our failed establishment” (paywalled link). This is a reckoning, a ‘bill’, if you wish, which Lord Frost presents to the Tory government and Party. It’s more gentle in tone than Allister Heath’s essay yesterday but no less hard-hitting. Disregarding Frosty’s clear support for Truss, his points apply equally to Sunak. I wish they and their ‘camps’ were to read this essay carefully and act accordingly.
Leaving aside his introductory remarks on speeches by Mrs Thatcher, Lord Frost writes:
“In retrospect, it seems obvious that by the late 1970s the post-war consensus had run out of road. It wasn’t so clear at the time. The consensus set the intellectual climate. Deviation from it took you off the policy reservation. Critics were quickly stigmatised as shallow, intellectually not up to the job or even dangerous.
The same is true today. For 20 years or more, political discourse has been dominated by a shared set of ideas: that the state should guide life through both tax and regulation; that economics is best done by technocrats, and politics is best done by judges and lawyers; and that it is the government’s job to take care of everything traditionally considered important in life so that we are insulated from risk and change.
On top of this come the beliefs that the nation state doesn’t matter, that a passport is a flag of convenience not a statement of national identity, and that a country is nothing more than the people who happen to be on its territory at any given moment – whatever their loyalties and however they got there.” (paywalled link)
After providing this careful background Lord Frost gets personal:
“I personally find this whole world view – the intellectual world of Gordon Brown, of Davos, the IMF, the European Commission, and virtually everyone who has been in power in Britain in recent years – profoundly depressing. It assumes there is only one way of doing things and that moral autonomy and individual beliefs do not count. Not surprisingly, it reached its apotheosis during the lockdowns.
It can even seemingly survive prolonged contact with reality. Unpoliced borders, a semi-detached Scotland, double-digit inflation, the prospect of energy blackouts, near-zero productivity growth, tax and spend at the highest levels since Clement Attlee – none of this suggests to its proponents that they got anything wrong.” (paywalled link)
Disregard Frosty’s support for Miz Liz and do keep in mind that the following also applies to Sunak:
“Liz Truss and her team are rightly refusing to be mesmerised by this orthodox wisdom. But the establishment doesn’t like it and moves rapidly to stigmatise heresy.
Suggest that the Bank of England hasn’t got everything right and you will be told, as by one member of the Monetary Policy Committee, Michael Saunders, that “the foundations of the UK monetary policy framework are really important, and best left untouched”. Suggest, as the Attorney General did this week, that judges on the ECHR don’t always get it right, and you will find yourself told by George Peretz QC that you are dealing in “crude civil law vs common law stereotypes that seem to be prevalent in the hard Brexit/anti-ECHR community”.
Criticise the Civil Service, and the former head of the Government Legal Service, Jonathan Jones, will tell you that you are being “crass”, “completely unfair” and “damaging morale and trust”. Suggest that lower taxes help business and you will be told by world-weary economists and commentators that business investment is not affected by business taxation. (Tell that to all the businesses that moved to Ireland in recent years.)
These people will oppose any worthwhile change. It is time to stop listening to them.
That’s because a national emergency is coming. Our energy policy has been criminally negligent. The choice by net zero proponents to rely on renewables and interconnectors, and to run down storage, means we face blackouts, hideous business-crushing costs, and people shivering and dying in the cold. The people responsible for this are as culpable as the “guilty men” whose policies ended up with German tanks at the Channel coast in 1940. They must be swept away from Day One.” (paywalled link)
Frosty is one of the few Tory Big Beasts who is not afraid to attack the insane Net Zero crap. It is devoutly to be hoped for that the next PM, Sunak or Truss, will heed his critique. Next:
“We are going to have to take some very unwelcome and expensive decisions to get through the next few months. But it must never happen again. We need to get serious about energy policy. Those who created the old one can’t be involved in the new one.
And this should be a “teachable moment”, to use Barack Obama’s phrase. If she wins, Liz Truss can point to it to illustrate the establishment’s failure and why change is needed.
That will be crucial. She will have no breathing space. She will have to govern straightaway. Like Mrs Thatcher, to bring people with her she will need to devote huge effort to explaining why free-market change is needed. She can’t do that while accepting the presumptions of the ancien régime.” (paywalled link)
Again, substitute Sunak for Truss and not one word needs to be changed. This advice also applies to the ‘camps’ and ‘allies’ of both candidates. Lord Frost’s concluding paragraphs are distressing, disregarding his ra-ra-Liz attitude:
“The problem is that lots of people have simply never been exposed to any other ideas. I have had many conversations with people under 40 who clearly have simply never heard free-market arguments. Indeed, they often think they have been living under a free-market regime rather than under a drift to a modern high-tax high-hectoring form of regulatory socialism.
That is our fault. Conservative politicians have simply not set out the arguments in a way that compels attention. Too many are frightened of criticism and instantly back off if questioned.
We need to get back to making a case. The case that countries are stronger where people keep their own money and decide things for themselves. Where they are not dependent on state charity for everything that matters. Where they are expected to develop as individuals and build their communities themselves, not wait for the Government. And where the Government does its job properly – making sure the borders are controlled, the streets policed and the lights stay on.
These things make better countries. People can see that. That’s why the consensus is much more fragile than it looks. Liz, give it a kick and it will come crashing down. Then we can move forward.” (paywalled link)
Sadly, I can’t see either Liz or Rishi ‘giving it a kick’. The only way their new government and premiership can survive is if they give Lord Frost a top post in their cabinet where his experience and outlook will count. Mind you – either of them must be willing to listen and learn, but I’m cynical – I think their ‘camps’ and allies’ will do everything they can to block and discredit Frosty and encourage their ‘client’, that new PM, to disregard him.
I am frightened.
Aren’t hot summers often followed by cold winters?
If the electricity goes off in winter I almost certainly will die of hypothermia.
Buy yourself a nice warm duvet and wear outdoor clothing indoors.
If you have a fireplace, see about getting some fuel in (say firewood)
HarryFAgain- presumably the same for those in hospital?
PB- you have my tel no. We have spare beds. Not Caribbean but warm & snug. You may have to do some cooking. You can cook right?
I have said before: Short of becoming PM himself, Frost needs to be her ‘Willie’.
Hear hear, Phil O’S at 12.04pm.
(I think she will invite him into the Cabinet and he will accept.)
good
HarryFAgain- is your wife related to Mrs Johnson?
Nice one Biscotte!
It’s all very depressing…Punch and Judy are still squawking at one another, “…Oh yes I will…” “…Oh no you can’t…”
Each of them claims to be only one that can get us out of this horrible mess, yet both of them were part of the government that got us into this stinking mire in the first place.
Neither of them are willing even to talk about our uncontrolled immigration and what it costs financially and culturally.
Why? Because it would mean breaking the last shackles that bind us to the European Court system and that means getting Brexit done… irrevocably. It will possibly involve our relationship with the UN.
Neither are willing to break away from the Paris Climate Accords and scrap all the suicidal “Net Zero” policies. It doesn’t matter what “The People” want…The Party, the WEF and the Davos set won’t permit it.
I am sure that both of them will hang on to every word uttered by Tedious Bejasus and his WHO and be ready and willing to have us all terrified, masked, locked down and jabbed every winter…just in case.. to flatten the curve. And neither of them will be allowed to tackle the major cause of the NHS crisis, namely far too many layers of expensive and unproductive “management”. It’s like the great ship “Mary Rose”. It’s top-heavy. It’s already listing. The capsize will be swift.
The choice? A globalist wearing expensive suits vs a globalist in a dress….GOD help Brtiain.
I concur with Lord Frost’s findings. No doubt, some centre Right voters will be cheered that the core of the problem has been identified and that action will be taken to turn the ship around. In truth, the remedy that Lord Frost will never acknowledge and one that most centre Right voters dread – actually having to get off their butts, cough up a few quid, join a centre Right challenger party and become an activist.
No doubt,Lord Frost’s comments will prompt similar outpourings from Redwood, Davies, Baker et al as they play their vital role in keeping the credulous centre Right onside over the run up to the next election.
Net Zero Carbon is NOT crap.
There is only a fixed amount of hydrocarbon fossil fuel in the Earth. Not all of it is available or reachable for use..
We have now reached the point where what remains is under the control of various despots who are unfriendly to us or the democratic system. We also need hydrocarbons for other uses besides burning, they are too valuable to burn.
As it becomes depleted, it will become ever more expensive.
We are now at the point of final depletion, the only way now is down (ie more expensive). Handouts by the government are just robbing Peter to pay Paul. Plus we are up to our eyeballs in debt anyway.
We need more money spent on the alternatives, not less. Stupid politicians only think of the next election.
We are all in for hard times, anybody that says any different is a lying toad. All due to LACK OF INVESTMENT in alternatives over the last two decades.
It’s alternative energy or back to the stone age,
The age of prosperity driven by cheap fossil fuel is finished.
Due to government incompetence and LACK of investment, there is going to be an interregnum of fuel poverty.
For the wingers out there, we ain’t seen nothing yet.
Actually Harold, I agree with you once again; we are in for some very hard times. Consider this though, I spend a lot of time in the mountains, in remote wilderness, staying either under a tarp, tent or in a mountain cabin and I very rarely miss electricity. Sure, I can use a little solar or energy bank to charge the odd electrical gadget that I like to use but overall it’s amazing how little energy we need to survive. Most of the energy we use is just luxury and if we have to, we can survive without most of it.
Heating is the critical one though, I can burn wood but I live in a much less densely populated part of the world. Britain will probably become like many other third world countries where the forests are cut down for fuel. Too many people for a little island and so yes very hard times indeed.
There is only a fixed amount of hydrocarbon fossil fuel in the Earth?
I remember we were going to run out of food by the year 2000. There is a credible theory that oil is a product of huge pressures deep within the Earth’s crust, and that it seeps upward. Wells that were exhausted have been found to have filled again after a decade or so. I don’t know enough yet to judge. But even if not, there is certainly enough for many decades, ample time for ever inventive man to mitigate the situation; no excuse whatsoever for all the fake-panic green crap. EV’s are not green, by the way; massively pollution-loaded (that’s real pollution) up front and at end of life; rather like solar panels and wind turbines in fact.
PoS- I’m not getting at you but I must correct some falsehoods.
‘deep within the Earth’s crust’
I only know of one deep well penetrating the Earth’s crust (at a ‘thin’ point). Horribly expensive even 30 odd years ago due to depth and potential collapse of equipment plus high temperature tools. Well drilled purely for info. From memory Scandinavia area.
At deep depth, there is very high temperature – way beyond military monitoring stds. Oil becomes sort of ‘bitumastic’ and does not flow. If if does flow, rising to surface it cools and becomes a solid blockage – bl**dy difficult to remove. Only gas will be found, if any hydrocarbons exist.
(Same problem occurs in SW Trinidad drlg through the Pitch Lake).
‘Wells that were exhausted have been found to have filled again after a decade or so’. Oh yeah? Where?
Considering clumping all the oil droplets together in a reservoir is in contradiction to all mathematics and experiments showing they should not do this. It took millions of years to get to the stage reservoirs are today.
Most of GB wells are offshore. When exhausted they are usually abandoned in a fashion that cannot be reused. Similarly land wells. So going back in after ten years or so is not possible – pls provide examples of where has this happened? Slumberger logging will cost you a minimum 250,000 pounds after you have got back into a well to find out what is down there. Are ya feelin lucky?
Thanks. Feel free to critique. I welcome all information, except perhaps the HA type. I did not say it was possible or that I believed it, simply that I had seen it as a theory, proposed by two apparently level-headed engineer/scientist types. It went against what I thought I knew, but that is often how science progresses, so your knowledge is helpful. If I can relocate the link I will post it.
Thanks Phil at 11.59am.
That has cheered me a bit.
I’d just like to remind everyone about nuclear energy. Get moving now on that for when fossil fuels do run out and/or get too expensive.
Pressure is another way of transferring ( Transporting ) energy. You can use a different kind of “Wire”. OR, Even better, you can generate it yourself. Before the war an english firm made and sold refrigeratore that worked from the pressure of a water tank in the loft. There are companies I have worked in that make Motors that can do what electricity cannot. Pressure can be safer. And there’s others.
In any logical universe we would have a hydraulic sector occupying its proper place. There are many other sectors where alternatives exist to electricity or petrol or nuclear.
Someone point them out to Dyson.and the pillocks in the civil service who can think. When our Civil service gets its backside into gear it can do stuff .Then when it starts to attract attention , politicians step in and sell it for jam today ( Remember North Sea Oil ). And the public is educated to avoid thought. Frost is more right than he knows. The scientists in SAGE can K…. my A……
PS Even the cleverest can be a pillock.
The pressure driven fridge used one eggcupfull of water an hour or two.Exactly the same system could heat a house or charge a battery.
Pressure is NOT energy..
PV=mRT.
Potential.
The world is awash with fossil fuels. Anyone thinking ‘alternative energy’ is going to be cheap and plentiful (and ‘green’) in future years are living in cuckoo land. It doesn’t work like that. Governments don’t want ‘cheap’ anything. Those claiming they are running this or that for nothing are mostly doing so because others are subsidising it
That’s all fine and good as long as it is both sustainable and economical. That criteria is filled by Nuclear and in my book that’s the way we should be going only we have dithered for way too long. My generation is going to face nothing but hardship as it cannot change fast enough for us to benefit. For that I wish a pox on the bar stewards that got us in this position.
Nuclear energy is very expensive as the Frogs are now finding out now their reactors are at the end of their life.
As more people/countries get into it, it will become ever more expensive as the competition hots up for uranium.
We would be dependent on nasty foreigners again for uranium.
We need more tidal energy.