A year ago Keir Starmer was saying this:
Now, as I mentioned yesterday there is no mention at all of the Green New Deal in his new vision statement.
There is speculation that this is to keep the GMB happy. Apparently, that's more important than keeping his word, or sticking to the need to deliver a comprehensive deal on sustainable energy (which the GMB don't like as I understand it because of their pro-nuclear policy).
Starmer really does need to prove he can keep to his word. I am far from being the only person dismayed by this.
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Interesting in all the discussion and frequently stated “lack of wind’ I have yet to hear on MSM that part of the problem is the unplanned shutdown of 3 nuclear reactors (and 2 planned)
https://www.goodenergy.co.uk/blog/2021/09/15/why-are-wholesale-energy-prices-so-high-and-what-does-it-mean/
As for Starmer keeping to his “word” – I begin to wonder if he is nearly as bad a serial liar as Johnson. Nothing he said in his campaign to become leader has been subsequently upheld.
That is interesting. I had no idea. That is 5 out of the 14 reactors still in service. https://www.edfenergy.com/energy/power-station/daily-statuses
It gets worse. Dungeness has already gone. As I underwent it, two plants (four reactors, Hinckley B and Hunterston B) are planned to close next year. And two more in 2024 (Hartlepool and Heynsham 1). That will leave three plant (six reactors, at Torness, Sizewell B and Heynsham 2). With planned maintenance, the situation will be permanently worse than it is now, at least until Hinckley C opens in 2026 or later. We really have to hope there will be enough generating capacity from other sources to fill that gap.
Although, on reflection, perhaps the nuclear has not made too much of a difference: in the last year or so, UK nuclear has been bumping around at 4-6 GW of generation, down from a fairly consistent 7.5 GW from a few years ago. https://grid.iamkate.com/
Whereas wind and solar are so variable – at times over 13 GW wind plus 5 GW solar yesterday, but each about 2 GW today. And gas (or coal, or the interconnectors) have to fill the gaps. https://www.energydashboard.co.uk/fourtyeight
How do we get to 20 GW minimum and around 40 GW maximum of consistent output from renewables within reasonable time? Like Germany, I suspect we will continue to outsource a considerable amount to French nuclear.
I really do not understand the fixation with power from wind and solar, both very variable. We are surrounded by water, tidal waters, which unless the moon falls out of the sky will always be there!
@ Willie John
Exactly the point made by Peter May on Progressive Pulse
http://www.progressivepulse.org/green-new-deal/time-for-tide
I agree with it
The thing I remember from many years ago – it seemed be much reported on TV – was ‘Salter’s Duck’ to harvest wave energy, and use it to generate electricity. Whatever happened to it? Is it an idea that should be resurrected?
I work in renewables and can tell you the main issue with wave/tidal power is creating moving parts and systems that last more than five minutes in salt water and high energy maritime environments.
Given enough time it may well be achievable, who knows.
We’ve done it many times before
Amazing how ships, rigs and so much else have been made to work
Maybe his name ought to be ‘Harmer’?
Him and his centrist idiots have indeed ran out of ideas because they are caged by a false belief system.
I picked up a bit of wisdom the other day from the film ‘Django Unchained’ in relation to slave ownership (a film that basically tries to deal with slavery in the American South in Questin Tarantino’s own style) in that ideas are better to work with because it is easier to change ideas. It is harder to change a person’s beliefs.
Beliefs are therefore more personal, more cherished by the holder and contain more relevance and partiality.
Our politicians have too many beliefs and not enough bloody ideas. And Starmer the Harmer is no exception it seems.
Poor us.
Nuclear costs have gone in only one direction – upwards, even after the 100 year clean up costs are to be paid by the state. The technology is becoming less and less feasible: the two EPR Hinkley-type units in Finland (construction started 2005) and France (started 2007), have had costly delays (now due to open in 2022 and 2023,). Hinkley Point C construction started in 2018 & costs are already up from £18bn to £22bn. Target opening date of 2026 almost bound to be put back by several years.
Neither Labour nor Tory nor GMB union dare say nuclear is stupid – as Germany has , but it will probably just wither away, as projected new projects get pushed further and further into the indefinite future.
Why Starmer daren’t mention a Green New Deal? He could have done that without any reference to nuclear either way. He seems politically unsure, and maybe just has no confidence in trying to analyse the economic, social and political implications of major policy choices.
I believe Greenpeace assessed the 2019 Labour manifesto as ‘greener’ than the Green Party manifesto. How times change. Oh J……..dear.
You may not be aware that the Green New Deal was rejected prior to the conference in a straight right/left vote. The Labour Party is firmly in the grip of the right wing sector around Starmer and that has obvious consequences for economic policy. Essentially there is no Opposition in any meaningful sense. It is best illustrated by the random titbits thrown to the Party faithful. Tax private education, a windfall tax on the energy sector, anything but a coherent strategy to deal with wealth disparity and , with that, an obsession with Neo liberal economic theory, Tax before you spend and show the tabloid readers how responsible you are!
The Great Knight Dope is only doing what was expected by me.
Mendellson doesn’t even bother hiding his Machiavellian control of the Dupe.
The MSM gives the government a free pass over the unsustainable BrexShittery consequences being daily ratcheted up, to keep the population ignorant of what is being done in our name. The social media drones keep the left/right fascist pot boiling.
Remember just a month or so ago when they said Covid is under control and a couple of doses of a Hobsons choice vaccine would make everything ok?
That there would be no major problem as long as daily deaths were below the ‘acceptable’ 100?
They have been trending way above for a week.
Schools are missing many pupils and teachers after just the second week.
We are softened up for a sorry Xmas , with not enough gas to power beer in pubs, or affordable gas for our boilers and ‘gas’ for our petrol tanks causing massive queues and road rage on the roads around where I live all yesterday ( the prices going up-meaning even more inflation – meaning the hook and crook increase in interest rates..).
Lorry drivers and workers who went home and are still leaving are unlikely to return with ‘special’ visas that require them to leave by Xmas day! the Independent reports today.
All that and more domestically, while abroad, a never ending stream of perfidy against the EU, Russia , China, Afghanistan, Syria. Iran, Libya – the whole of Africa, South America, Asia and Pacific – anybody who challenges the daily unravelling Empires status quo. The pathetic Quad and Aukus proxies! The great investments by China in our Nuclear Industry being torn up…
So many targets that a uncontrolled Opposition or free MSM would have made mince meat of the corrupt government in days!
Not a SINGLE punch has been sent in that direction let alone landed.
The GKH is not now and never was anything but a FAKE.
The sucker supremo SurKeir is only interested in defenestrating the Labour Party Membership and local parties that were duped by him and the MSM so that never again could a controlled Opposition /Incumbent Government be threatened by electing MP’s or Leaders that the members want!
Until most of us admit that, we aren’t going to have a hope in hell to halt a return to the prewar of dumbingDowntoning, little imperial Britain, serf hood lives and class structure.
The GND will remain DOA under U.K. incumbents.
“Starmer really does need to prove he can keep to his word.”
I’m afraid there is not much chance of this. He was elected to the Labour Leadership on 10 pledges. The third and fifth ones were:
“Put the Green New Deal at the heart of everything we do.” (as already stated in the OP)
“Public services should be in public hands, not making profits for shareholders. Support common ownership of rail, mail, energy and water; end outsourcing in our NHS, local government and justice system.”
On Andrew Marr just now he was claiming that he doesn’t want to adopt an “ideological ” approach and was trying to somehow claim that common ownership didn’t mean Nationalisation as we all understood him to mean at the time. Andrew Marr unfortuntely didn’t question him on the Green New Deal. I’m not sure why not. I’d be also interested to know how “at the heart of everything” didn’t mean what everyone took him to mean.
I noted his dismal excuses too
Clive Lewis MP summed it up on Novara Media over the weekend.
He said that Labour has always been (with the exception of the post war government) a “pressure valve”.
The party of the establishment is the Tories. They are in power for most of the time but when the public eventually reach breaking point the Establishment allow Labour into power. But Labour is also a party of the Establishment. It plays the “progressive” card but actually delivers very little change. It never challenges the power of money and corporations. (You want more hospitals, we’ll give you PFI). It’s job is to maintain the status quo as much as possible whilst being seen to address people’s concerns.
Recently the “left” of the party took the ascendancy and all the tools of the Establishment,MSM were brought to bare, to make sure that it didn’t get into power. The “mistake” of 1945 will not be allowed to happen again.
Stammer is making sure from within the party that no progressive candidates will become leader. That is a far bigger priority than challenging the Tories.
There can not be allowed to exist, a progressive party within UK politics that has widespread public support. An alternative to neoliberalism can not be mainstream and has to be kept at the “wacky” frindges of public discourse.