Sir,
The DT Editorial of 19th July regarding Test and Trace exposed the PM’s lack of a built-in compass, if not a stabilising gyro.As London Mayor he delegated to competent managers and that can work satisfactorily – until an emergency arises.But without strong personal conviction, plus a good grasp of fundamentals and the consequences of “following the science”, he will be easily blown around in a storm. Like her or not, our first Lady PM did not suffer from such shortcomings and our PM could do worse than follow her example. As we know, she would burn the midnight oil, to ensure that she had a good grasp of the issues. She was more of a leader than a follower.
Roger Arthur
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Sir,
Laura Kuenssberg sought to show that the Brexit case was flawed, when she challenged Dominic Cummings to tell the “whole truth“ – about the £350m per week on the red bus – being allegedly the cost of our E.U. membership.
Well here is something closer to the whole truth, which might help her.
The UK’s net direct membership cost was around £9bn pa, against £18bn pa gross. The EU decided how to spend the balance of £9bn, but we had little influence on how it was spent and on whether the UK got value.
So the U.K. taxpayer stumped up around £2 for every £1 that the EU gave back. Now consider the enormous indirect overheads. Gordon Brown said in 2005 that.
“Expensive subsidies still remain in some sectors and it is estimated that barriers to external trade and investment – such as tariffs, quotas and unjustifiably restrictive standards – could cost Europe’s consumers up to 7 per cent of EU GDP”.
A number of other reputable sources estimated a similar % for the U.K.which is quite a bit more than the figure on the red bus.
Perhaps Mrs K now has enough information to help us towards the whole truth.
Roger Arthur
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And finally, a general post by Roger Arthur:
“We are again seeing concerns expressed about lack of power generation capacity. Well, replacing fossil fuelled power stations, with an availability factor of around 75% – with solar and wind power with less than 30% – is clearly not going to help much.
Bearing in mind that on some winter days the total solar and wind generation capacity is little more than 1% of UK Maximum Demand, we must pray that not too many power station operators are pinged at times of peak load.
The UK has already cut its hydrocarbon emissions by more than most other G7 countries – to around 43% of 1990 levels – with a ‘cleaner’ electricity mix based on gas instead of coal, plus renewables.
Since 2004, our industrial electricity costs have increased by more than 160% and they are becoming increasingly un-competitive. The Electric Vehicle (EV) roll out programme over the next 9 years, will only make that worse.
EV charger ratings are typically 3.5kW or more and with 20 million EVs, the peak evening charger load could be 70,000MW, which alone exceeds current maximum demand (MD) on the National Grid. The equivalent of around 20 x 3,000MW nuclear power stations would be needed to cope with that demand.
That assumes only one EV per household and that that all 33m vehicles will not be replaced by EVs. To that must be added the load of electrically driven heat pumps, which replace gas fired boilers.
Notwithstanding all that, it has been estimated that an EV would need to be driven around 50,000 miles, before it breaks even with the CO2 foot print of an Internal Combustion Engine (ICE), when the average car mileage in the UK is only around 10,000 miles (e.g. here). Where is that covered by the government’s cost/benefit analysis?
Also, since the capacity of fossil fuelled power stations currently totals over 50% of the UK generation mix, EV charging will cause CO2 emissions for some time yet, while an emerging shortage of materials needed for EV production, looms ever larger.
So you might well ask why is the government going to spend £2 or £3 trillion to reduce human CO2 emissions, causing more fuel poverty – while driving more energy intensive companies abroad, to the likes of China and India – where they will emit more CO2 than before? It doesn’t look like good bang for buck, does it?
Did you vote for your household to fork out £100,000 towards a zero carbon target, when the whole concept (not to mention the climate change models) is so flawed?
Why not ask your MP to justify the assumptions made in perpetrating this flawed policy – when the UK only emits around 1% of global human CO2 emissions?
The PM is burnishing his green credentials at enormous expense to you and your children.”
Roger Arthur
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“The PM is burnishing his green credentials at enormous expense to you and your children.”
Johnson is an absolute disaster on all fronts for the British people but welcomed by the globalists who want to destroy life as we knew it for their own selfish and greedy benefit. What is it to be? The destruction of a few thousand of the evil ones or the destruction of millions of people whose only crime against humanity is continuing to vote for that enemy within?
Regarding our government’s energy policy of “decarbonisation”, the topic of RA’s general post above, this idiotic policy is just one symptom among many of the chronic deterioration of our governing class into drivelling psychosis. “Those whom the gods wish to destroy they first make mad” is an apt adage for Whitehall & Westminster since Ed Miliband’s demented Climate Change Act of 2008.
EVs are four times as efficient in energy use compared with the best ICE powered car.
It will be many decades before the last ICE powered car disappears from our highways
There are also the energy security & pollution as well as CO2 emissions to consider.
Tosh.
JF
Interesting letters identifying the disconnect between the concerns and the remedies as expressed by sensible citizens and the muddled thinking and agendas of Government and their agencies. Cui Bono?