At this rate we'll soon need some sort of Reddit-style megathread as we collect an entire Panini sticker album of ongoing issues. Right now,
- Gas price hikes
- CO2 shortages
- General HGV driver shortages
- Inflation due to price rises
- Potential of fuel rationing (again - driver shortages)
Anything else we need to consider?
None of this is new or sudden and Blair has a lot to answer for, he continued and massively expanded what Thatcher started. I remember......
Thatcher destroyed Scargill, the NUM and the coal industry and started privatisation
Blair encouraged low waged workers from Eastern Europe and the contracting out of manual jobs, what infrastructure development there was used PFI plus even more infrastructure was privatised.
Scientists and engineers too often were deemed a non productive overhead and axed, so R&D was also largely curtailed, especially the sort of long term govt backed blue sky research that gave us so many of the things we use today. I am one of those with a PhD in a physical science who was surplus to requirements and had to find another way ( and accidently ended up working in the rail sector).
Then the greenies persuaded govt to phase out coal and introduce green taxes on coal used to generate electricity... whilst the Chinese still opening loads of coal fired plants and the Germans replaced nuclear with electricity from burning lignite which is the most polluting coal possible.
Yup UK govts been self harming UK for over 20yrs to make a moral point, whilst any pollution reduction made by UK- tiny in world terms- has been outweighed in spades by the actions of others especially China.
It was a massive virtue signalling exercise; I wonder if such virtue signalling will keep people warm at night if we get a cold winter? It's already cost too many decent jobs.
I remember the days when Cardiff public library had a whole section with coal references including clean coal research, but that went the way of the APT and I suspect that section of the library is gone now.
The rare earth metals needed for so called clean solar, electric cars and windmills are extremely polluting to mine and the waste includes radioactive elements such as thorium. But as it happens in China where the journos cannot go, it doesn't get mentioned.
Wind been below usual this summer revealing the serious weakness of renewables ie unpredictability and volatility.
It's all coming home to roost. My (now late) father predicted this 20 years ago. Oh boy how right he was.
Wages and conditions for HGV drivers are poor thanks to 20 years of lots of imported cheap labour hence domestic HGV drivers leaving the industry. There's also more unused HGV1 licences held than vacancies and thanks to poor management and posturing unions at DVLA tests are in massive backlog as is most of what they do such as issuing licence updates. The cogs eventually aligned and the long foreseen consequences are being realised.
Fossil fuel including gas is not just costly but also taxed, but that's what the greeniacs are demanding. Welcome to the end of cheap electricity.
We desperately need a nuclear energy programme and a national energy policy and grid system that is fit for purpose.
We've had 2 decades of posturing emoting arts graduate govts- senior officials and PMs/ministers- plus an unfettered favouring of big corporates all seasoned with MSM that thrives on using emotion to gain audience share- and here we are.
TPO