Saturday 29 November 2014

DTel & C@W: Coincidence or What?

Now here's a coincidence.  Last weekend, spurred by a Reader's Request, I dashed off a really quick'n'dirty how-did-we-get-into-this-mess?  piece on the UK power market.  That was 23rd Nov.   

On 26th, the DTel publishes something, errr, similar, from Allister Heath.  Similar?  You be the judge, I couldn't possibly comment. 
The break-up of the CEGB / introduction of competition was a SUCCESS  (ND)
The privatisation of the electricity industry and the introduction of genuine competition was a triumph (AH)
The rot really set in when it was decided to impose a 'green' agenda … Miliband a big early culprit 
The rot really set in when Tony Blair decided to impose a target that a predetermined proportion of energy would be generated from renewable energy …. Ed Miliband’s influence on the UK’s energy policy during his time in government was also catastrophic 
During the post-CEGB 1990's and early '00s …materially reducing electricity prices 
In the 1990s prices fell significantly 
Remember, no country had ever introduced competition at the residential level before 
The pioneering energy market painstakingly introduced by its predecessor … the free market that had been introduced by the Tories and which had worked far better than many people realised at the time 
Blame the subsidy-culture resulting from non-stop governmental meddling that has set in since the green agenda really kicked off. Would-be developers of new PP's have been on investment strike since they noticed that only suckers put their money on the table without demanding a bung 
Almost all sorts of generation that currently take place in Britain – be it zero, low or high carbon – now benefits from handouts or various kinds of price supports … the Government [retook] control of all electricity generation.. started to subsidise heavily certain forms of electricity, it also had to create artificial incentives to make that enough investment remained in other sources

Any sign of the usual hat-tip courtesy ?  I'm not holding my breath.  Imitation, flattery.  Ho hum.

ND


7 comments:

Bill Quango MP said...

Hmmm .. But now we know we have this influence..?

How about penning a piece that bloggers should be exempt from all taxation? For the public good?

andrew said...

how many read the site / that post over the last week?

Nick Drew said...

google says 141 read the post (up until right now) - no idea how accurate those stats are

Demetrius said...

A hundred or so years and more ago it used to be fairies at the bottom of the garden. Now it seems to be interns devilling.

Anonymous said...

Looks like interns.
The "readers request" being a way for the intern / journo to get the story.

Beware of many more "can you tell me.." Posts.

Wildgoose said...

Of course there is another way to look at it.

If you know something about the field under discussion then invariably journalists get it wrong - sensationalist, misleading, repeating common misconceptions, and so on.

If you think about it, if every time you understand the actual facts about a matter you see them get it wrong then by implication they'll also be getting it wrong when you don't know any better.

Which shouldn't be surprising really, nobody is expert at everything, especially those who didn't even study the subjects they pontificate about.

So isn't it refreshing when instead of writing the usual garbage they actually try and get it right for a change? :-)

hovis said...

Whilst no doubt having good enough sense to reda your copy ND, Heath has become an ignorant fool at the DT. Many of his positions were mainainable without any data post 2008, but in general he takes an unthinking theoretical busines school line on things.