LR on Carrie hubby bashing:
That show’s about as funny now as a colonoscopy or root canal. Hislop and that other one were never funny and the guests were uniformly awful. The only humorous ones were the producers and that one who had a prostitue while his wife was pregnant.
Is the word ‘lowlifes’ too strong for such as these? Which is not to excuse Carrie hubby or Liz the PM … think it’s more a case, is it not, of pot … kettle?
Meanwhile, on energy, I posted Woodsy’s comment at another place. Here tis:
I assume all 'our' gas - 'ours' being what is extracted under UK licences - is being extracted by international companies and sold at the highest price they can get on the open market. So we are being charged that rate plus all the levies, renewable obligations etc. But I don't see that Lizzie has the recognition to see how deep the problem goes or has the will to solve it. She needs to nationalise all UK licensed wells and scrap net zero to provide power at extraction cost. If we rationed to (say) a 4 day week because of shortage GDP would take a 20% hit. But if energy is simply unaffordable for businesses they will close down and there won't be any GDP in a year's time and the food shortages and subsequent riots will finish us off.
… and that relates to my Ukro-Russian mate sending me the Euro-Woke Conversation blog trying to sheet it to the war. He’s partly right though … the decision makers here, the bstds … are desperately trying to link our situation to EU-Ukraine-Russia. Not unlike driving Dutch farmers off farms, acquiring the land for nefarious reasons … then crying out, syndicated, that there’ll be food shortages in winter. Best I just shut it now.
This is the bit I’d found earlier:
Re: Woodsy "...nationalise all UK licensed wells..."
ReplyDeleteThe problem is caused by government. Does Woodsy really think that nationalisation, i.e. more government, is the cure for too much government?
People have such short memories. How can anybody look at the history of our nationalised industries and still think nationalisation is a good idea?
Just shorthand Frank, I don't suggest they should run the wells, government can't do that, but to take over the output as an emergency measure. It's no different to the actions taken over business in wartime crisis - how would you define today's situation if shops, industry and essential manufacturing close down (as some are already doing) because of the price of energy?
ReplyDeleteAgree. I understood your suggestion as meaning "only a deliberately suicidal country allows vital national infrastructure and strategic assets to be sold off, owned and run, by foreign companies (wholly or partly owned by said foreign countries governments) ... especially 'enemy' countries".
DeleteIt is the equivalent of handing the running of our armed forces over to those with allegiances to other countries/cultures (er, oops). Or the police to criminals (ditto). etc., etc.,
I went through a phase, like many, of assuming it was the usual mercenary idiocy causing these actions/decisions. Now I 'know' it's blatant intentional malice.
So? To keep the pedants happy, let's say "vital infrastructure and strategic assets 'must' be wholly owned/managed/operated by companies based and staffed entirely with citizens of 'this' country" who may (just, possibly, maybe) have some "skin in the game" and inclination not to screw the whole country over.
After that we can possibly consider only allowing citizens to work in places like the Foreign Office, Immigration, The Passport Office and Customs, instead of staffing them entirely with the very foreigners we they are 'supposed' to be limiting. Baby steps and pipe-dreams again.
The situation with Russian oil is quite revealing. Since sanctions, most European nations have stopped buying Russian oil, causing the price of all other oil to spike upwards as demand increased.
ReplyDeleteRussia is now selling it's oil to Saudi Arabia, albeit at a discount, Saudi Arabia is then selling full-price 'Saudi oil' to the sanction-imposing countries. That's just displacement, the winners are Russia and Saudi, we're all the losers. Sometimes principles can be a tad expensive, but the Saudis never suffer from that affliction.
True.
DeleteThe GB should do the same as the Saudis with Gas as well. It would cause the EU to think twice of their stupid sanctions.
DeleteHow about, no company can export anything until the our own country has all that it needs. That is, we export surplus goods etc only?
ReplyDeleteThe problem is how do you break the link between global spot markets and locally produced resources? Nationalisation would cost billions, but then how much would the idea that Government pay the difference between spot market rate and the capped rate for energy cost? I bet given any significant period of time, the nationalisation option could work out cheaper.
ReplyDeleteThen there's the issue of tying supposedly cheap renewable energy to the spot markets as well. So if fossil fuels go up in price, it all goes up in price so the renewable energy companies are making huge profits from the differential between cost to produce and selling price.
There are lots of options for Liz Truss to investigate. In the immediate term, abolishing VAT on energy and fuel would be a good way of providing immediate respite.