I tweeted throughout Sunak's speech this afternoon. This is what I had to say but you will have to read from the bottom up, I am afraid:
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It seems to me the key statement Sunak made was his statement about the new transformational, open politics he promised.
He can’t make that claim; it simply has no credibility. He is saying Government has not been been open, and has been dishonest. It is his government. he has been in the big jobs for years. There is no hiding place.
Yes, politics needs honesty, openness, candour. Not from him. If he believes that, the open and honest response is for Rishi Sunak to resign and call an election. The dishonest choice is to turn on its head everything the Government has done, as if of no account; brush off his own guilty part in it all; and claim only he can deliver honesty in government.
Humbug.
Everything else is window dressing. At the most basic level, we have no purchase on Sunak wriggling out of it, as soon as convenient. After all he has just given us a transparent example of his wriggling, squirming and denial of his change of tack. He can do it again; and again; and again.
Much to agree with there
It was uncannily reminiscent of Theresa May. At one point he came so, so close to saying:
“Nothing has changed”. He virtually said it, several times when insisting he hadn’t changed the British net zero targets which had already been set.
Mr Warren you make some very good points, openess candour etc. A failure by politicians with respect to these requirements (and an ability to communicate with citizens in a frank & honest manner) has consequences –
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/sep/21/revealed-one-in-three-europeans-now-votes-anti-establishment
Thus the problem, utter distrust of politicos by citizens, is widespread, it is not, just, a UK problem. I’ve said it before, political failure of this sort leaves space for opportunists. This led to disaster in the 1920s and 1930s, it is shaping up to be a disaster again. Not to worry, the PPEs have all the answers. (& Colonel Smithers on this part of Richards blog made some points relevant to the above: https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2023/09/20/sunak-will-retreat-on-climate-change-with-labours-tacit-consent-it-will-be-for-those-who-will-be-impacted-to-protest/).
Mr Parr,
I speculate that what may have spooked Sunak into his absurd speech in the Downing Street Bunker (nobody except Sunak has even heard of the seven bins problem) is that finally he spent five minutes looking at the facts; Britain’s housing stock is the oldest, and worst, most non-green stock in Europe. That is a fact. That is what Conservative government and neoliberalism does for you. Our housing is the worst insulated, energy wasting stock you could imagine, but it is real. Lots of decaying, Victorian junk thrown up in haste, and DIYed fourteen times since. Between the wars bungaloids where the wind is higher inside than out; post-war social housing sold off and not replaced with nothing, but air; and then there is the modern stuff – thousands of fire-hazard clad flats. Sunak looked at the sheer scale of the housing stock crisis catastrophe his Party and Government is almost wholly responsible for creating, or of kicking the can down the road for six decades (MacMillan was the only Conservative who tried to build, but his was the two-war generation, and he had some sort of conscience).
Sunak thus took fright at the scale of the mess we are in, and ducked out of even attempting to address it. He has turned doing nothing at all, and leaving people slowly to freeze to death, into a fatuous claim he is saving them money, and doing them a favour. He is leaving them in the lurch. Neoliberals, eh?
Neoliberalism and neoliberals have to go, en masse into the political wilderness: now.
‘not replaced with anything’ (I built that sentence like Britain’s housing – all air and no substance).
Agree with most. Sunak is well past his sell by date – time to kick him off the political supermarket shelf (should he have ever been on it?), & he’s not even worth discounting.
Couple of specific things. If (!!!) the nuke industry can build at a levelised cost of say £60/MWh – then good luck to them. SMRs – no probs. But no subsidy. In the case of Heat Pumps – rock & a hard place – the Uk’s Low votlage power network in urban & suburban areas can’t support penetrations of +30% – this is not an opinion – but a reality. In the case of EVs – public charging points have interesting failure modes and are a developing problem. Of course all these engineering problems have engineering solutions. But gov policy, as developed (or not) by know nothing wonks with PPEs & ditto by know nothing politicos will lead to disaster. Of course, politicos and their advisors not having a tin ear (ref the off-shore wind AR5 fiasco) helps. Sadly, vile-tory-lite is shaping up/down into something resembling the current useless/gormless crew.
PS: Imperial Colledge published an econometric study on Heat Pumps, All fine, sunlit uplands, unicorns etc. But they failed to note the inability of the LV network to support high penetrations – surprising cos the supervisor of the study certainly knows. Academics eh!!
How to solve the LV problem?
There is no single solution. Tweak the network (maybe a new HV/LV sub here or there), new cable here or there, more insulation in homes (= better thermal inertia), re-purpose parts of the gas system for H2 (= H2 boilers or fuel-cells). The last option has a poor business case and the prevailing ideology is against it (= we must not use green H2 for heating, HPs are more efficienct). The others could be done, depending on the political “colour” of the gov and the ability (or lack thereof) of Ofgem to control the DNOs. IT would “erode” the problem, but not solve it.
PV on roof-top? – quite good in spring & autumn & can be used to power HPs. What happens in Jan, 5 days of overcast and the temp is 0 Centigrade. We have modelled all this for between 150 and 250 houses with 10 levels of insulation (and a user specified house size, actually the user can specify just about anything, including penetration & size of batts – for storage). All the results look bad in terms of 100% (or indeed 50%) HPs. Factor in home EV charging and the problem grows like topsy. Demand response? a twiddle at the end of the elephant sized problem.
Rubbing salt into the wound – the situation in France (with respect to households) is totally diff & circa 60% of their TOTAL energy is zero carbon (elec & heat). Yup, nukes are not wonderful, but for the French they delivered a pretty good result. For the avoidance of doubt, I would be very very happy to be shown that I (and others) are very wrong. & I’m not pro-nuke, but pro-solutions that are timely and deliver a zero-carbon result.
& a PS: in an effort to minimise costs, the DNOs when state owned, were very keen on service loops. Thus a service cable connected to the main LV cable goes into one house (and terminates in a “cut-out”, & then loops out to another house & another and another. This system (very common) predicates against new loads (or indeed PV generation). I could write pages on this stuff. Do note how NONE of this EVER gets into the press or surfaces in what laughably passes for de-carb debate.
Thanks
Apologies for posting twice. Failure to act on (CO2) emissions has consequences. The Guardian covered this today. The map tells you all you need to know re PM2.5 emissions:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng-interactive/2023/sep/20/europes-pollution-divide-see-how-your-area-compares
The east Euros are roughly 4x above WHO limits – due to coal burning both in power stations & in homes. In Germany it is easy to see where the coal power stations are. By contrast France is interesting, nuclear and large-scale electric heating means that the worst PM pollution is in North France and around Paris. I’m not pro nuclear but compare & contrast France and Germany. 400,000 excess deaths per year due to excessive PM2.5s (and vehicles emit a fair bit). With Sunak kicking the can down the road – perhaps he wants his kids to have shorter lives, who knows.
Agreed
“400,000 excess deaths per year due to excessive PM2.5s (and vehicles emit a fair bit)”
Are you ok Mike?
That seems a big number of excess deaths given that deaths per year are in the 700,000-900,000 range.
If that number of excess deaths are occurring then we hold the secret to immortality, exaggeration but you get the point i hope.
The measure is for Europe
You could have checked the link.
Thank you for the correction:
It is for Europe
And it’s ‘linked to’ not ‘due to’.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-suffolk-66845722
He missed this, did he?
Mind he has started on improving the electricity grid. He had it upgraded outside his own mansion in North Yorkshire to allow for the heating of his swimming pool.
There’s an expression used to describe TV shows when the plot has run out of ideas and the action takes a ridiculous unrealistic twist that even the most ardent fans can’t watch any more – it’s called “jumping the shark”. They usually cancel the show soon afterwards and put it out of its misery.
Sunak jumped the shark today.
Inaction Man in action.
I’m developing a large number of low carbon bungalows on a site which will have air source heat-pumps and we have to build our own electric sub-station on the site to cope with the voltage as the existing infrastructure – sweated by its current rentier private owners – could not possibly take the load.
Sunaks’ speech made my stomach turn for all sorts of reason’s – the crocodile tears for the poor that his party’s austerity measures have created in the low wage economy that Cameron wanted.
However, this could be the Tories last desperate gamble for which I’m sure there will be willing takers.
England is a country with much that needs doing but with no intent within anyone it seems of paying for it? Surely this ranks us as a failed state of some sort?
It’s like there’s a big standoff on real investment and instead, an addiction to screwing as much out of existing infrastructure as possible.