Wednesday 27 August 2008

Gratuitous Plug ...


... for the Grauniad. On a bad day I wonder why I read this rag, there is only so much belly-laughing to be had from reading La Toynbee: but on a good day it puts the increasingly pitiful Torygraph to shame (the Times having long since been beyond the pale).


Here are:

- the best article on the Olympics I've read, by the great Simon Jenkins
- a very workmanlike (OK, work-womanlike) demolition of the idea of an energy-co windfall tax

Both on the same day !
ND

9 comments:

Old BE said...

Ahh, I thought there was something slightly shifty about you. Now I know why.

I am a lapsed Times reader, but these days I can't get no satisfaction from any paper.

roym said...

But do we actually have a functional free market when it comes to energy? if you ask me, it feels a bit more like a cartel dictating domestic energy costs. and where exactly is the evidence that Eon or EDF are investing in the UK? face it, we've lost control of our precious resources and allowing it to be burned off with nothing to show for it. We seem to be the only deregulated energy "market" in Europe and yet still have the shameful prospect of substantial numbers of fuel poor households. Its the 21st century for crying out loud!

Bill Quango MP said...

Simon Jenkins, usually reliable.
Why is he at the Guardian?
He must be lonely on his coffee break with no one to talk to

Old BE said...

Roym, we've used up our gas. We have had lots to show for it while it last such as heat and light! You can only burn it once though!! Plenty of coal, plenty of space for nukes. Mmm. They are expensive though, so no surprise that electricity prices are going to go up and up.

Unknown said...

Me i'm satisfyed
http://www.kabonfootprint-gov.com

Nick Drew said...

cheeky bugger, BE, that's the last book I lend to you

Roy - welcome. Actually you can easily show that E.ON et al are investing, and they will probably invest a great deal more (else we are all up the creek) if UK conditions are reasonable - and the govt gets its ducks in a row on energy policy, see this blog passim.

what do we have to show for our liberalised market ? a decade of lower energy prices than Europe's (and lower than the previous decade), ending in 2004 when we became a net gas importer for the first time since around 1995 (we'd been a big net importer before that)

what should have happened by then, is that the EU countries should also have liberalised. But they have mostly been stonewalling, and still are, to our detriment.

The Tory record on strategic energy policy in the '90s was vastly superior to anything we've had since. Just because you believe in open markets, doesn't mean you should abrogate your policy responsibilities. But Brown is a late convert to free markets and doesn't understand them at all

Old BE said...

Yes, must be nearly time for me to give it back. That would, of course, depend on a chance meeting in a London drinking establishment...

Anonymous said...

The Maily Telegraph is becoming much worse, isn't it? But the Saturday and Sunday Telegraphs are still pretty good. I suspect that they suspect that those are the only two days of the week that men have time to read the oaper.

CityUnslicker said...

I still buy the telegrpah every day - only for Randall and Evans-Pritchard really.


Janet Daley and Heffer really wind me up