In 2018, with ‘The Coddling of the American Mind’, Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt launched a sustained attack on what they called the culture of ‘safetyism’ in American parenting and on university campuses. Their target was the belief that children and young adults are fragile beings who must be protected from uncomfortable ideas and the […]
Until today’s decision by Kemi Badenoch to scrap or reform the Climate Change Act, Ed Miliband was arguably the most successful figure in British politics. Net Zero, rooted in the 2008 Act, sits like Brexit across all of political life. And unlike the Brexiteers, he got his opponents to buy into his cause, changing the […]
When you next fill up your car, the cashier will not ask you your net worth before deciding how much to charge you for a tank of petrol. Rich or poor, trucker or taxi driver, we all pay the same bill for the same product. The same is true when we buy groceries, run the […]
The conceit of the 2015 Paris Agreement is that the planet’s temperature can be centrally planned and controlled like a thermostat, with a target to hold the rise since industrial times below 1.5°C, or at the very least 2.0°C, by 2100. The mechanism for delivery consists of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC): each signatory nation’s commitments […]
On June 20 2024, the UK Supreme Court ruled by a 3 to 2 majority to uphold the appeal of climate activists against Surrey Council (a local authority) on the granting of planning consent in 2019 to expand oil production at an existing site in Horse Hill near Horley. The ruling means the project cannot […]
Pragmatists who recognise that there is no chance whatsoever of the UK weening itself off oil and gas by 2028 have welcomed the approval of 27 new drilling licenses in the North Sea. The enthusiasm with which companies like Shell have snapped up the new licenses is surely a riposte to worries that the 75% […]
Yesterday the UK engaged in an ‘act of war against life on earth’. You may not have noticed, however this is the view of naturalist and BBC presenter Chris Packham in regard to a decision in favour of drilling for oil in the Rosebank field, West of Shetland. Other climate warriors agree; from Caroline Lucas, […]
To the surprise of no one who understands the sector, the Government’s North Sea windfall tax (or ‘Energy Profits Levy’) is hurting investment. Having imposed a 75% profit tax on (compared to 19-25% that prevails in the wider economy) and committed to keeping it until 2028, ministers have faced a slew of headlines about capital […]
Grateful energy slaves of Britannia rejoice! For your wise masters and their factotums at energy regulator Ofgem will have reduced your typical dual fuel energy bills this summer by 17% – just under double typical prices two years ago, and almost enough to cover the rise in the cost of food. I for one will […]
Two things in life are certain, death and the Government failing to understand taxes. Early in 2022, when the latest North Sea windfall tax was first being considered, both industry and think tanks warned of the certain consequences of slaughtering the golden goose. As I said at the time: “Politicians calling for new windfall taxes […]
Another day, another set of hysterical headlines about energy company profits. This time Centrica plc, the £30bn owner of British Gas, has achieved record yet relatively unremarkable profits of £3.3bn – triple its results in 2021, but only around 10% of equivalent results for British fossil fuel majors. Unite General Secretary Sharon Graham describes this as ‘obscene’ […]
In 1833, in Houndsditch in the City of London, a small antique shop, founded by Iraqi Jewish émigrés became a pioneer in a new trade, imported seashells. Nearly 200 years later the successor business, Shell Plc has posted record annual profits of £32.2bn, and paid £10.5bn in global taxes. Brilliant stuff, this is a tale […]
It looks like former Energy Minister Claire Perry O’Neill has got back to her roots. Despite her election as a Conservative MP in 2010, the Guardian giddily described Perry O’Neill as “having shown no previous commitment to Conservative politics’ and reported she had ‘flirted with the Labour party as a student’. Now she is back […]
Given that the UK is in the midst of an energy crisis, specifically caused by a shortage of gas, you’d expect the Government to be doing everything it could to extract more of the stuff. You wouldn’t expect them to be raising random taxes, banning production, introducing new regulations and enforcing existing ones as harshly as possible in order […]
In Aesop’s fable of The Hen that Laid the Golden Eggs, a man blessed with such a creature gets greedy, slaughters it expecting to find gold inside and is left instead with a chicken dinner. The North Sea is not a poultry farm, and the Treasury is not a purveyor of nuggets, gold or otherwise. However […]
Cry not for Britishvolt, for it is already dead. Although the battery start-up has secured a dripline of new funding for the next five weeks of operations, it cannot compete with established gigafactories from industrial rivals well ahead in the development of this global industry – most notably rivals in China, who provide batteries for Britain’s […]
COP would be more useful to the planet as a duller event. At a time, when only 4% of the British public rate environmental issues as the “most important issue” we face, it is hard to fathom why so many British politicians feel obligated to jet off to Egypt to make empty speeches at the latest UN […]
When former Prime Minister Liz Truss announced her two-year Energy Price Guarantee, some of us noted with concern that this middle class welfare on steroids was a very expensive way of tackling the problem of higher energy prices. Towards the end of her month in power it seems her second Chancellor agreed, promising to review […]
The best way of managing an energy supply crisis is to find new sources of energy supply. If you can’t do that quickly you need energy use to fall until such a time as supply catches up. In a market-based energy system this is relatively simple, albeit politically painful. As demand exceeds supply prices rise. […]
After the hideous market and public reaction to the Government’s mini-Budget, Labour could announce a mission to build a moon base made of cheese and their poll ratings would still rise. There’s no moon base in the manifesto just yet, but what they have launched is a rather opaque Green Prosperity Plan to decarbonise power […]
