I was considering voting Plaid Cymru as I think the candidate makes a good MP and is often a sceptic, even supporting Andrew Bridgen over the vax.
However I will definitely be voting Reform as the only Party who wants to ditch NetZero. I think this, and all its ramifications, is THE most important issue currently.
Thank you for this summary David, though it doesn't raise the spirits. I did a word search on the Tory, Labour and Lib Dem manifestos and found none of them promising honesty, which is perhaps what the electorate most crave. (Keywords, honest, honesty, truth and true.)
I take issue with your using the word "lie" of the Lib Dems. I suspect it's worse than that, since liars at least know what the truth is. And no carbon flying is real, it's simply no flying.
As an avid follower of the Doomberg substack and the team's motto "Energy is Life" I've been educated in your line of thinking of energy at the centre of the economy, but it doesn't seem to be common currency, even among economists. Otherwise, more in Westminster might have spotted a connection between the UK's relatively high energy costs and relatively moribund economy.
For the UK there's clear "least worst" option using an extremely energy-dense fuel that can be deployed around the existing grid and give us decent energy security and stability, without combustion of carbon and a realistic "levellised cost of energy", as shown in the informative chart on the latest substack post by the Energy Bad Boys - "Lazard's Low-End LCOE Estimates for Solar Are Still Too Optimistic". As it happens, I've spent a fair bit of time on Southbank Investors listening to Nigel Farage and gather he too has arrived at the view that nuclear is the way forward.
Lastly, I hope Otto von Bismarck can cheer a few people's day: "People never lie more than after a hunt, during a war, or before an election".
Well I have seen very healthy bananas growing in the north-west of Scotland (indoor hydroponic) but I'm curious as to what it was in my comment that drew your response as I was advocating nuclear power and the reference to solar was an article by the Energy Bad Boys containing a very interesting comparison chart. In case you haven't seen their work, it parallels David's but in a US context and they go into similar detail as to why the costs of wind and solar are commonly and seriously underestimated.
And I imagine a lot of solar in UK is the even more impractical distributed solar. An extremely bad location for solar. Idiot politicians just have no sense.
Thank you again for the link. Pretty forthright stuff. I read the summary and a fair bit of the detail before feeling the summary had given me enough. As I'm sure you're aware, Gordon Hughes has done a similar, and similarly damning paper on wind: https://www.ref.org.uk/attachments/article/374/Economic-Solar-Generation.pdf Full credit though to the Renewable Energy Foundation for being transparent and publishing the papers, which can't have been comfortable reading for at least some of the members. I note with alarm the prospect of current wind farms either ceasing to generate after their 15 years or less of economic life , (unless taxpayer subsidies increase) leaving a mass of monuments and no energy. I suppose they will be designated as works of art or heritage sites by UNESCO.
Contrast this with potentially 50+ years for nuclear plant. Ouch.
What we have to remember here is that the mainstream parties are over invested in driving green policies riding off the back of the bandwagon that they thought the public wanted to hear due to the media claptrap that's been pushing that narrative for years. So none of them can afford to row back on it overnight but the Torys and even to degree Labour have drawn back from their daft positions of a few years back so I take solace in that things are retreating and an equilibrium will be reached at some point where we have a mixture of renewables and fossil fuels. Yes that will be more expensive but it will KEEP THE LIGHTS ON which is what matters.
On specific policies Labours 2030 offshore wind ambition is plainly unachievable - it would require the entire world manufacturing and installation resources to be committed now to get slots so it aint going to happen (oh and 80% of the spend will end up overseas if you did that so no green jobs in UK). Its only in there to keep the MIllibrain contingent onside and will quietly disappear when reality sets in.
The Torys have enough weasel words to both show they have green credentials yet give them a route forward to a common sense approach. The rest of them are just in la la land.
I got a much better plan, more effective, same emissions and cost a whole lot less. Fossil and renewables, nix the renewables, except the bit of hydro. Fossil almost all CCGT & ultra-supercritical coal. And a big move to nuclear. It's the only energy plan that makes any sense, for most countries on this Earth.
Its very disappointing that supercritical coal hasn't gained traction anywhere as reducing the amount of CO2/MWh would have been a far better target for the world to have adopted for power plants rather than this obsession that eliminating all CO2 production is the only answer.
Britain would certainly have the same emissions or possibly even lower if they had gone with ultra-supercritical coal & CCGT instead of wind/solar/biomass with a lot of OCGT & expensive imports buffering the wind/solar. That's without the scam of calling biomass "carbon neutral", my ass. At a far lower cost.
Good work exposing the differences between the parties on a crucial policy.
Reform are the only ones not living in cloud cuckoo land. They know Net Zero is national suicide. Their peoples contract estimates the cost of current policies will be over £2Trillion and they will abolish them .
One aspect of the Reform draft policy I consider to be a wasteful diversion of resources is nationaling 50% of the energy industry. A very expensive bill for taxpayers that will likely lead to even lower standards of service.
It is the regulation of energy that needs reform: ditch the CCC, restore OFGEM's role as consumer champion, change the anti nuclear ONR into an organisation that is pro consumer interest in low cost nuclear, remove the power of NGESO to set energy scenarios that require massive expansion of its business. Replace DESNZ with a Department for Cost Competitive Energy. Cancel the Carney ESG programme and make banks understand that government will not bail them out if they invest in uncompetitive renewables.
I see that in the Contract released today the nationalisation is now aimed at 50% of utility companies. That would presumably include water and traditionally telecoms. I can't see any advantage in this, except that the knee-jerk reaction of many of the public has been that nationalisation would somehow solve the problems we see from bad regulation, presumably because that is what they have been led to believe by lefty media. This is a very bad idea indeed: it would only cement bad regulation, and lower service standards.
There is a lot to be said for public owned nuclear. Give a big middle finger to the a-holes in the EU court, and fund it with the lowest interest rates, preferably with a public bank's debt free money. And that gives it some protection from the corrupt vultures who fund corrupt politicians and mercenary ENGOs who will try to subvert the nuclear. And have an incentive to reform the equally corrupt regulators who try their damnedest to subvert nuclear. Might even incentivize government to have the balls to force all NGOs to reveal who all their large donors are, like they are now doing in Georgia.
There is a lot to be said for ensuring sensible financial structures for all utilities. That includes limiting the degree of gearing, in exchange for access to a long term debt market that is more copathetic in duration with asset lifetimes (thus avoiding refinancing crises), perhaps with an element of government underwriting for a portion of it. The sweetheart deal for Chinese finance at Hinkley Point should never have been allowed: pension funds would have bitten off hands for access to a 10% guaranteed return - or even at the time 5%.
Of course, part of the deal is that the assets should have a fair competitive life rather than being closed by diktat.
Indeed if Labour had any sense they would just order an off the shelf APR1400 from South Korea which are mission proven can be built in under eight years. No involvement from our regulators to interfere with a tried and proven design.
Yes, they had an excuse for going with the worst choice EPR and its absurdly expensive private financing, due to the imposed orders of the EU dictators. Supposedly they are now out from under the EU's boot and have the freedom to get the best deals. Which, right now, are the APR1400 and the VVER1100 from Russia. Russia will even finance them and just charge a low rate for power.
Of course the Neocons, Greens & Neoliberals would never allow that. And the good ol' USA has come up with some scam to block APR1400 sales with lawsuits from Westinghouse. Sure seems to be a lot of our "climate change savvy" politicians who step over each other to find ways to block the only feasible replacement for fossil fuels. Tells you a lot.
It's a big cost for no gain, and likely further deterioration. Where is the win? Let foreign-owned wind farms turn out to be unprofitable so the owners take the loss. Energy retailers make tiny margins. Council owned ones have gone bust leaving bills for the rest of us. The state has no expertise to develop oil and gas.
Any govt that presides over blackouts wont even make to the end of its term so im pretty confident that Millibrain will soon be finding excuses as to why his 2030 goal can't now be achieved. In fact i wouldn't be surprised to see him moved out the way pretty rapidly once Starmer gets in as if they don't deliver on growth they wont make any progress to appease the electorate. Screwing up energy supply will utterly undermine the growth goal.
Just convince the idiots who still vote Conservative to recognize the party is dead, deceased, defunct and switch their votes to Reform. Then Reform can beat Labor.
Last week I decided I’d had enough of campaigning as I felt I was getting nowhere in influencing the people who matter. Time to “get a life”. I deleted all my alternative media subscriptions and auto notifications to render myself as un/mis-informed as average Joe Public who relies on the corrupt mainstream media for news, except that I missed one, namely this blog. I duly received email notification of this post. I’ll take that happenstance as an omen, as this post sums up what I’ve been saying for decades. I’m forwarding David’s notification to immediate family so that they can’t say they haven’t been warned. I fear we will all have to take what’s coming to us.
Take heart. The public are waking up, as comments at much of the media online reveal. It's important to KBO, especially with a new government about to put its foot in things in a big way.
First up will be the decisions on the AR6 auction due to be made by end July.
GMB, representing lots of workers in the extraction, defence and remaining manufacturing industries are one of the few normal voices within the internal labour debate.
The Green hairshirts are running the Parliamentary Uniparty and are funded (inexhaustibly it seems) by billionaire globalist backers to make sure that the Uniparty adheres to the agreed consensus on Net Zero whilst the various factions all pretend to be slightly different from one another in order to convince voters that they actually have a choice in these matters, which they don't of course. The Net Zero impoverishment via massive wealth transfer and Western deindustrialisation was decided decades ago and has been steadily implemented across Europe and the Five Eyes nations ever since. The pink-haired Greenshirt 6th formers in the Green Party plus the militant millenarian pre-pubertal pink-haired and pension-aged blue-rinse XR/JSO religious converts glueing themselves to roads and vandalising precious artworks etc. are there to make the mainstream lunatics look slightly less batshit crazy.
Then there's Reform - and Nigel Farage. Are they/is he the 'real deal'? I can't say for sure. I was gutted when he stood down BXP candidates en masse at the last election in order to install the fake Cons with a large majority. Johnson was publicly pontificating about his fantasy renewables plans months before the election and his slightly tweaked 'Withdrawal Agreement' was STILL a Brexit sellout, which Nigel actually endorsed. The Cons were so obviously cucked One Nation liberals even before the last election. Yet the faithful traditional Tory-voting public embraced the 'affable' Boris with open arms and even working class northerners lent him their vote. BIG mistake. We're about to make a similar mistake with Labour, with probably even more catastrophic consequences. Reform are the only party out there who APPEAR to totally reject the necessity and practical utility of Net Zero, who have a realistic prospect of gaining seats and presenting a genuine opposition to a barking mad, insanely irresponsible Starmer-led neo-Marxist/globalist government, so they're all we've got. I will be voting Reform whilst smoking copious quantities of hopium on July 4th.
Dont disagree but Farage should have moved a lot earlier to have built the case for an alternative as it takes years to shift the electorates mind-set. The SDP came close in the 80's but Thatcher was lucky with the Falkands then engineer the boom that got her back in 87 Farage can't offer that.
Great assessment Jaimie, thank you, clearly you haven't drunk the KoolAid. UK needs a strong, modern, and valid constitution along the lines of South Africa. The recent SA election proves the effectiveness of their democracy (it remiains corrupt, of course, but you can't have everything). https://austrianpeter.substack.com/p/election-special-food-prices-eskom?sd=pf
With Reform likely to garner 15-20% of the vote, the corruption in the UK first-past--the-post system will be exposed by a spotlght for all to see. Ref Wiki:
"FPTP is one of the simplest electoral systems, and has been used to elect the House of Commons of England (and its successors for Great Britain and the United Kingdom) since the Middle Ages. "
"Notwithstanding its simplicity and antiquity, there are several major drawbacks to FPTP. As a winner-take-all method, it often produces disproportional results, particularly when electing members of a legislature, in the sense that political parties do not get representation according to their share of the popular vote. This usually favours the largest party and parties"
No system is perfect and one could say Hitler rise to power in part owes itself to the PR system in Germany. In some respects Britain has had some of its best times when the National govts were created in the 20s to 40's and I for one would have been happy to have that arrangement now.
Not a great selection but obviously Reform are the only ones with a rational Energy plan, vague though it may be at the moment. The Greens are doubling down on insanity, just as they are in Germany. But in their defense, being staunch war hawks, we can expect the Green energy plan to work quite well with Europe becoming a radioactive rubble pile, after they stoke WW3 with Russia. Definitely that will severely cut back fossil energy consumption.
Reform is the only party worth voting for as it stands. #1 reason is not energy but for supporting peace & growth rather than war & degrowth. And to not support another bioweapon disaster, the last one of which will cost the US $16T.
Col. Black: NATO Is Preparing For a Nuclear Strike on Russia, And Russia Knows It:
"...Russia's nuclear doctrine is exclusively defensive, and it provides for scenarios under which nuclear weapons can be used. One, of course, is if Russia is simply attacked by nuclear missiles. Another one is if the Russian state is threatened by superior weapons, conventional or otherwise, which is actually an existential threat to the cohesion of the Russian nation. The most important, however, is that under their doctrine, they would be able to use nuclear weapons if they believe that nuclear missiles are being launched against it. In other words, if an attack is aimed at crippling its nuclear forces, if they believe there are missiles being launched which is aimed at crippling its nuclear forces. They can respond. Now, if you look at where we are right now with the three drone attacks directed at their eyes and ears against nuclear attacks, this clearly would trigger the nuclear doctrine of the of Russian state..."
Why So Little Media Interest In Ralph Baric? - Peak Prosperity, Dr. Chris Martenson:
"“Their” Covid narrative is falling apart, and we’re helping of course. Far too little attention has been paid to Ralph Baric by the media and given his expertise in the area, it’s particularly odd that they did not ask him once about coronavirus infections and cardiomyopathy. Oh, … and the next acts of war against Russia were unleashed this week."
Many thanks SFS, good intel. Agreed, Reform is the least of a bad lot but under the UK FPTP elitist system, they have little chance of influencing anything IMHO. Nigel is a fighter, and I admire him for that, but if he rattles the cage too much, an accident might be waiting for him.
The Banksters have already flown a kite over his finances and I don't think they will stop there. I don't believe we can vote our way to prosperity - it's structural, a cunning design from long ago. When empires enter old age (av 250 years), the result is often a war and I see all the signs of one or two building now. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xguam0TKMw8
Our lives are at risk from many directions, SFS; our health (Vaxx), our food (Gates), our water (Fluride, e-coli, toxins), our sanity/mental health (PsyOp), our energy (Net Zero), our infrastructure (15-min Cities), our money (CBDC), our privacy (Digital ID stockade), the air we breathe (Chemtrails)...da da da. I don't see Reform seriously challenging these, our most immediate threats? Neil Oliver knows, he calls it an engineered 'Polycrisis'. From a year ago:
Still if most people switch votes from Conservative to Reform, Reform could win. And sure, the corrupt Establishment will switch into high gear to subvert that, as they are doing to Trump, but every time they do that, they are exposing themselves, and more and more citizens are realizing they've been scammed. Common knowledge, that's the first step in revolutionary change.
I was considering voting Plaid Cymru as I think the candidate makes a good MP and is often a sceptic, even supporting Andrew Bridgen over the vax.
However I will definitely be voting Reform as the only Party who wants to ditch NetZero. I think this, and all its ramifications, is THE most important issue currently.
Thank you for this summary David, though it doesn't raise the spirits. I did a word search on the Tory, Labour and Lib Dem manifestos and found none of them promising honesty, which is perhaps what the electorate most crave. (Keywords, honest, honesty, truth and true.)
I take issue with your using the word "lie" of the Lib Dems. I suspect it's worse than that, since liars at least know what the truth is. And no carbon flying is real, it's simply no flying.
As an avid follower of the Doomberg substack and the team's motto "Energy is Life" I've been educated in your line of thinking of energy at the centre of the economy, but it doesn't seem to be common currency, even among economists. Otherwise, more in Westminster might have spotted a connection between the UK's relatively high energy costs and relatively moribund economy.
For the UK there's clear "least worst" option using an extremely energy-dense fuel that can be deployed around the existing grid and give us decent energy security and stability, without combustion of carbon and a realistic "levellised cost of energy", as shown in the informative chart on the latest substack post by the Energy Bad Boys - "Lazard's Low-End LCOE Estimates for Solar Are Still Too Optimistic". As it happens, I've spent a fair bit of time on Southbank Investors listening to Nigel Farage and gather he too has arrived at the view that nuclear is the way forward.
Lastly, I hope Otto von Bismarck can cheer a few people's day: "People never lie more than after a hunt, during a war, or before an election".
Solar in the UK makes about as much sense as banana plantations in Scotland.
Well I have seen very healthy bananas growing in the north-west of Scotland (indoor hydroponic) but I'm curious as to what it was in my comment that drew your response as I was advocating nuclear power and the reference to solar was an article by the Energy Bad Boys containing a very interesting comparison chart. In case you haven't seen their work, it parallels David's but in a US context and they go into similar detail as to why the costs of wind and solar are commonly and seriously underestimated.
Yes that is an excellent article. Also this one:
THE ECONOMICS OF UTILITY-SCALE SOLAR GENERATION, Gordon Hughes:
https://www.ref.org.uk/attachments/article/374/Economic-Solar-Generation.pdf
And I imagine a lot of solar in UK is the even more impractical distributed solar. An extremely bad location for solar. Idiot politicians just have no sense.
Apologies, the link for wind is: https://www.ref.org.uk/Files/performance-wind-power-uk.pdf
Thank you again for the link. Pretty forthright stuff. I read the summary and a fair bit of the detail before feeling the summary had given me enough. As I'm sure you're aware, Gordon Hughes has done a similar, and similarly damning paper on wind: https://www.ref.org.uk/attachments/article/374/Economic-Solar-Generation.pdf Full credit though to the Renewable Energy Foundation for being transparent and publishing the papers, which can't have been comfortable reading for at least some of the members. I note with alarm the prospect of current wind farms either ceasing to generate after their 15 years or less of economic life , (unless taxpayer subsidies increase) leaving a mass of monuments and no energy. I suppose they will be designated as works of art or heritage sites by UNESCO.
Contrast this with potentially 50+ years for nuclear plant. Ouch.
Thank you - I'll follow it up.
What we have to remember here is that the mainstream parties are over invested in driving green policies riding off the back of the bandwagon that they thought the public wanted to hear due to the media claptrap that's been pushing that narrative for years. So none of them can afford to row back on it overnight but the Torys and even to degree Labour have drawn back from their daft positions of a few years back so I take solace in that things are retreating and an equilibrium will be reached at some point where we have a mixture of renewables and fossil fuels. Yes that will be more expensive but it will KEEP THE LIGHTS ON which is what matters.
On specific policies Labours 2030 offshore wind ambition is plainly unachievable - it would require the entire world manufacturing and installation resources to be committed now to get slots so it aint going to happen (oh and 80% of the spend will end up overseas if you did that so no green jobs in UK). Its only in there to keep the MIllibrain contingent onside and will quietly disappear when reality sets in.
The Torys have enough weasel words to both show they have green credentials yet give them a route forward to a common sense approach. The rest of them are just in la la land.
I got a much better plan, more effective, same emissions and cost a whole lot less. Fossil and renewables, nix the renewables, except the bit of hydro. Fossil almost all CCGT & ultra-supercritical coal. And a big move to nuclear. It's the only energy plan that makes any sense, for most countries on this Earth.
Its very disappointing that supercritical coal hasn't gained traction anywhere as reducing the amount of CO2/MWh would have been a far better target for the world to have adopted for power plants rather than this obsession that eliminating all CO2 production is the only answer.
Britain would certainly have the same emissions or possibly even lower if they had gone with ultra-supercritical coal & CCGT instead of wind/solar/biomass with a lot of OCGT & expensive imports buffering the wind/solar. That's without the scam of calling biomass "carbon neutral", my ass. At a far lower cost.
Good work exposing the differences between the parties on a crucial policy.
Reform are the only ones not living in cloud cuckoo land. They know Net Zero is national suicide. Their peoples contract estimates the cost of current policies will be over £2Trillion and they will abolish them .
Final version should be available Monday.
One aspect of the Reform draft policy I consider to be a wasteful diversion of resources is nationaling 50% of the energy industry. A very expensive bill for taxpayers that will likely lead to even lower standards of service.
It is the regulation of energy that needs reform: ditch the CCC, restore OFGEM's role as consumer champion, change the anti nuclear ONR into an organisation that is pro consumer interest in low cost nuclear, remove the power of NGESO to set energy scenarios that require massive expansion of its business. Replace DESNZ with a Department for Cost Competitive Energy. Cancel the Carney ESG programme and make banks understand that government will not bail them out if they invest in uncompetitive renewables.
It will entail lots of personnel changes.
I see that in the Contract released today the nationalisation is now aimed at 50% of utility companies. That would presumably include water and traditionally telecoms. I can't see any advantage in this, except that the knee-jerk reaction of many of the public has been that nationalisation would somehow solve the problems we see from bad regulation, presumably because that is what they have been led to believe by lefty media. This is a very bad idea indeed: it would only cement bad regulation, and lower service standards.
There is a lot to be said for public owned nuclear. Give a big middle finger to the a-holes in the EU court, and fund it with the lowest interest rates, preferably with a public bank's debt free money. And that gives it some protection from the corrupt vultures who fund corrupt politicians and mercenary ENGOs who will try to subvert the nuclear. And have an incentive to reform the equally corrupt regulators who try their damnedest to subvert nuclear. Might even incentivize government to have the balls to force all NGOs to reveal who all their large donors are, like they are now doing in Georgia.
There is a lot to be said for ensuring sensible financial structures for all utilities. That includes limiting the degree of gearing, in exchange for access to a long term debt market that is more copathetic in duration with asset lifetimes (thus avoiding refinancing crises), perhaps with an element of government underwriting for a portion of it. The sweetheart deal for Chinese finance at Hinkley Point should never have been allowed: pension funds would have bitten off hands for access to a 10% guaranteed return - or even at the time 5%.
Of course, part of the deal is that the assets should have a fair competitive life rather than being closed by diktat.
Indeed if Labour had any sense they would just order an off the shelf APR1400 from South Korea which are mission proven can be built in under eight years. No involvement from our regulators to interfere with a tried and proven design.
Yes, they had an excuse for going with the worst choice EPR and its absurdly expensive private financing, due to the imposed orders of the EU dictators. Supposedly they are now out from under the EU's boot and have the freedom to get the best deals. Which, right now, are the APR1400 and the VVER1100 from Russia. Russia will even finance them and just charge a low rate for power.
Of course the Neocons, Greens & Neoliberals would never allow that. And the good ol' USA has come up with some scam to block APR1400 sales with lawsuits from Westinghouse. Sure seems to be a lot of our "climate change savvy" politicians who step over each other to find ways to block the only feasible replacement for fossil fuels. Tells you a lot.
What we need is regulators with the teeth that the US have not the feeble minded woke lot that run OFGEM
It's a big cost for no gain, and likely further deterioration. Where is the win? Let foreign-owned wind farms turn out to be unprofitable so the owners take the loss. Energy retailers make tiny margins. Council owned ones have gone bust leaving bills for the rest of us. The state has no expertise to develop oil and gas.
Any govt that presides over blackouts wont even make to the end of its term so im pretty confident that Millibrain will soon be finding excuses as to why his 2030 goal can't now be achieved. In fact i wouldn't be surprised to see him moved out the way pretty rapidly once Starmer gets in as if they don't deliver on growth they wont make any progress to appease the electorate. Screwing up energy supply will utterly undermine the growth goal.
Just convince the idiots who still vote Conservative to recognize the party is dead, deceased, defunct and switch their votes to Reform. Then Reform can beat Labor.
Last week I decided I’d had enough of campaigning as I felt I was getting nowhere in influencing the people who matter. Time to “get a life”. I deleted all my alternative media subscriptions and auto notifications to render myself as un/mis-informed as average Joe Public who relies on the corrupt mainstream media for news, except that I missed one, namely this blog. I duly received email notification of this post. I’ll take that happenstance as an omen, as this post sums up what I’ve been saying for decades. I’m forwarding David’s notification to immediate family so that they can’t say they haven’t been warned. I fear we will all have to take what’s coming to us.
Take heart. The public are waking up, as comments at much of the media online reveal. It's important to KBO, especially with a new government about to put its foot in things in a big way.
First up will be the decisions on the AR6 auction due to be made by end July.
You should see them on Facebook and Nextdoor, for energy farms etc. There are a lot people awake.
An excellent and detailed analysis, David thank you. I tend to focus on geopolitics and macroeconomics and leave it to experts like yourself and valuable critics at https://energyskeptic.com/2015/tilting-at-windmills-spains-solar-pv/ for examle.
Here's my take on the Climate Scam and other matters from a year ago: https://austrianpeter.substack.com/p/climate-scam-mayday-ai-doomed-gay?utm_source=twitter&sd=pf
Nothing really changes - follow the money is th best tactic IMHO
It’s like reading a bunch of six-years old kids writing to Santa with GMB Union and Reform the only adults in the room.
GMB, representing lots of workers in the extraction, defence and remaining manufacturing industries are one of the few normal voices within the internal labour debate.
The Green hairshirts are running the Parliamentary Uniparty and are funded (inexhaustibly it seems) by billionaire globalist backers to make sure that the Uniparty adheres to the agreed consensus on Net Zero whilst the various factions all pretend to be slightly different from one another in order to convince voters that they actually have a choice in these matters, which they don't of course. The Net Zero impoverishment via massive wealth transfer and Western deindustrialisation was decided decades ago and has been steadily implemented across Europe and the Five Eyes nations ever since. The pink-haired Greenshirt 6th formers in the Green Party plus the militant millenarian pre-pubertal pink-haired and pension-aged blue-rinse XR/JSO religious converts glueing themselves to roads and vandalising precious artworks etc. are there to make the mainstream lunatics look slightly less batshit crazy.
Then there's Reform - and Nigel Farage. Are they/is he the 'real deal'? I can't say for sure. I was gutted when he stood down BXP candidates en masse at the last election in order to install the fake Cons with a large majority. Johnson was publicly pontificating about his fantasy renewables plans months before the election and his slightly tweaked 'Withdrawal Agreement' was STILL a Brexit sellout, which Nigel actually endorsed. The Cons were so obviously cucked One Nation liberals even before the last election. Yet the faithful traditional Tory-voting public embraced the 'affable' Boris with open arms and even working class northerners lent him their vote. BIG mistake. We're about to make a similar mistake with Labour, with probably even more catastrophic consequences. Reform are the only party out there who APPEAR to totally reject the necessity and practical utility of Net Zero, who have a realistic prospect of gaining seats and presenting a genuine opposition to a barking mad, insanely irresponsible Starmer-led neo-Marxist/globalist government, so they're all we've got. I will be voting Reform whilst smoking copious quantities of hopium on July 4th.
Dont disagree but Farage should have moved a lot earlier to have built the case for an alternative as it takes years to shift the electorates mind-set. The SDP came close in the 80's but Thatcher was lucky with the Falkands then engineer the boom that got her back in 87 Farage can't offer that.
Great assessment Jaimie, thank you, clearly you haven't drunk the KoolAid. UK needs a strong, modern, and valid constitution along the lines of South Africa. The recent SA election proves the effectiveness of their democracy (it remiains corrupt, of course, but you can't have everything). https://austrianpeter.substack.com/p/election-special-food-prices-eskom?sd=pf
With Reform likely to garner 15-20% of the vote, the corruption in the UK first-past--the-post system will be exposed by a spotlght for all to see. Ref Wiki:
"FPTP is one of the simplest electoral systems, and has been used to elect the House of Commons of England (and its successors for Great Britain and the United Kingdom) since the Middle Ages. "
"Notwithstanding its simplicity and antiquity, there are several major drawbacks to FPTP. As a winner-take-all method, it often produces disproportional results, particularly when electing members of a legislature, in the sense that political parties do not get representation according to their share of the popular vote. This usually favours the largest party and parties"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-past-the-post_voting
I can't find the origination of FPTP voting - I guess it's buried somewhere here?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Commons_of_England
No system is perfect and one could say Hitler rise to power in part owes itself to the PR system in Germany. In some respects Britain has had some of its best times when the National govts were created in the 20s to 40's and I for one would have been happy to have that arrangement now.
Well you could use IRV or STV or another form of Preferential Voting which avoids most of the problems with FPTP and PR.
Me too - happy days Nickrl when there was honour among thieves eh :-)
We’re all doomed! All except reform are either mad or still think the emperor is wearing clothes.
Not a great selection but obviously Reform are the only ones with a rational Energy plan, vague though it may be at the moment. The Greens are doubling down on insanity, just as they are in Germany. But in their defense, being staunch war hawks, we can expect the Green energy plan to work quite well with Europe becoming a radioactive rubble pile, after they stoke WW3 with Russia. Definitely that will severely cut back fossil energy consumption.
Reform is the only party worth voting for as it stands. #1 reason is not energy but for supporting peace & growth rather than war & degrowth. And to not support another bioweapon disaster, the last one of which will cost the US $16T.
Col. Black: NATO Is Preparing For a Nuclear Strike on Russia, And Russia Knows It:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ET5ZjNIU0dg
"...Russia's nuclear doctrine is exclusively defensive, and it provides for scenarios under which nuclear weapons can be used. One, of course, is if Russia is simply attacked by nuclear missiles. Another one is if the Russian state is threatened by superior weapons, conventional or otherwise, which is actually an existential threat to the cohesion of the Russian nation. The most important, however, is that under their doctrine, they would be able to use nuclear weapons if they believe that nuclear missiles are being launched against it. In other words, if an attack is aimed at crippling its nuclear forces, if they believe there are missiles being launched which is aimed at crippling its nuclear forces. They can respond. Now, if you look at where we are right now with the three drone attacks directed at their eyes and ears against nuclear attacks, this clearly would trigger the nuclear doctrine of the of Russian state..."
Why So Little Media Interest In Ralph Baric? - Peak Prosperity, Dr. Chris Martenson:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcSeCIZxyZg
"“Their” Covid narrative is falling apart, and we’re helping of course. Far too little attention has been paid to Ralph Baric by the media and given his expertise in the area, it’s particularly odd that they did not ask him once about coronavirus infections and cardiomyopathy. Oh, … and the next acts of war against Russia were unleashed this week."
Vote Reform. Your life may well depend upon it.
Many thanks SFS, good intel. Agreed, Reform is the least of a bad lot but under the UK FPTP elitist system, they have little chance of influencing anything IMHO. Nigel is a fighter, and I admire him for that, but if he rattles the cage too much, an accident might be waiting for him.
The Banksters have already flown a kite over his finances and I don't think they will stop there. I don't believe we can vote our way to prosperity - it's structural, a cunning design from long ago. When empires enter old age (av 250 years), the result is often a war and I see all the signs of one or two building now. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xguam0TKMw8
From 10 months ago - little has changed: https://austrianpeter.substack.com/p/ww3-declared-de-banking-silent-weapons-e27
Our lives are at risk from many directions, SFS; our health (Vaxx), our food (Gates), our water (Fluride, e-coli, toxins), our sanity/mental health (PsyOp), our energy (Net Zero), our infrastructure (15-min Cities), our money (CBDC), our privacy (Digital ID stockade), the air we breathe (Chemtrails)...da da da. I don't see Reform seriously challenging these, our most immediate threats? Neil Oliver knows, he calls it an engineered 'Polycrisis'. From a year ago:
https://austrianpeter.substack.com/p/polycrisis-nicola-nicked-poetry-in?utm_source=twitter&sd=pf
Go well and spread the word
AP
Dire warning from the President of Serbia that NATO/USSA/Davos is going to jump the cliff in Ukraine:
President of Serbia: Three or Four Months Away From a Big Global Escalation. The train has left the station and no one can stop it:
https://nakedemperor.substack.com/p/president-of-serbia-three-or-four
Still if most people switch votes from Conservative to Reform, Reform could win. And sure, the corrupt Establishment will switch into high gear to subvert that, as they are doing to Trump, but every time they do that, they are exposing themselves, and more and more citizens are realizing they've been scammed. Common knowledge, that's the first step in revolutionary change.