Today we've seen two things that strongly suggest to me that Starmer & his strategists aren't just hanging tough on controversial issues, they are positively looking for a fight. Indeed, several.
Exhibit A: the NHS. Starmer, in today's 'NHS' speech [1] -
... So hear me when I say this. No more money without reform. I am not prepared to see even more of your money spent ... That isn’t just solved by more money - it’s solved by reform.
This was reinforced pugnaciously by Wes Streeting on all channels, and of course we are absolutely meant to cop the headline aggression.
Exhibit B: Net Zero. Chris Stark (of whom you may never have heard, he's Ed Miliband's "mission control" for Net Zero) at an event today -
"The government is very clear that it will cost too much" [2] to put new Grid cables underground. On meeting the Net Zero goal he was “not pissing about” [3]
More ostentatious headline aggression. This is all of a piece with blunt pre-election announcements that Starmer & Miliband intend to steamroller planning processes that might delay their fatuous schemes for 100% decarbonisation of electricity by 2030 (and new housing, too). In this they are taking on a vast constituency of nimbies - ably represented in many cases by their Green and Labour MPs! - who are dead set against the countryside being covered by windfarms, solar farms and swathes of new Grid pylons. (And new houses, too.)
Now Machiavelli, as we know, strongly advocated the new Prince carrying out his unpleasant measures very early in his new regime. This isn't just getting 'em in, it's positively relishing them; and it starts to make the Child Benefit Cap and the Winter Fuel Allowance look, not so much as avoidable early miss-steps, as part of the bar-room brawler's "Oi'll foight any t'ree of yus". Or thirty million, it seems.
BTW, Old Nick also advised that it was better to be feared than loved ... Hey, we can do the second part of that for you, Kier.
ND
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[1] In response to Lord Darzi - an NHS surgeon - publishing a report saying that the NHS needs, errr, a load of money. Did someone say this is an "independent" report?
[2] He's not wrong about the cost, of course.
[3] In that case, sunshine, why not aggressively tell us what we all know to be true, that our electricity bills will be going up?
13 comments:
I see that plumber guy is leaving the UK and taking his wealth with him. If he has any sense, he'll go to Portugal for the nice weather and cheap property.
It's also close by so he can nip back to change a washer or two - for an extortionate fee of course..
"Exhibit B: Net Zero. Chris Stark (of whom you may never have heard, he's Ed Miliband's "mission control" for Net Zero) at an event today -
"The government is very clear that it will cost too much" [2] to put new Grid cables underground. On meeting the Net Zero goal he was “not pissing about” [3]"
As the GWPF noted years ago.
https://www.thegwpf.org/publications/net-zero-every-urban-street-and-front-drive-will-be-dug-up/
"“At present new home car chargers and heat pumps are using up all the spare capacity. But we will soon reach the point where the network will not be able to handle the extra demand. So in towns and cities, the underground cables which carry the power will be inadequate. That means that we are going to have to dig up almost every urban street and many rural ones too. The whole distribution grid is going to need to be replaced.”
And the cables that carry power into the homes will need to be dug up too.
According to Travers:
“The power cables taking electricity into your home probably run underneath your front drive. So if you want a car charger and a heat pump you are going to have to pay to dig it up. If you have an expensive monoblocked drive, that will not be cheap. Distribution boards, main fuses and smart meters in homes are going to have to be upgraded too.”
Travers has estimated the cost of all this work at around £200 billion, even before considering the cost caused by the disruption. “Many homeowners will be paying thousands”, he says. "
https://www.netzerowatch.com/all-news/new-paper-decarbonisation-plans-fail-engineering-reality-check
"It’s clear that there has been little or no systems engineering input into the plans. How can we possibly proceed further along the renewables path when we lack any technology to store electricity at scale? How can we hope to electrify transport when we would need to consume the whole global annual supply of several important minerals to do so, just for the UK?”
And Professor Kelly warns that the costs of decarbonising will be ruinous of our current standards of living.
The cost of the wind farms and the batteries and rewiring the grid to cope with the all the extra demand would be folly for an economy at the best of times. In the current crisis it’s madness. It’s like coronavirus all over again. A small group of advisers tell the politicians about the disaster that will befall the country if they don’t do as they are told. And the results will be just as calamitous as the virus has been. If not worse.”"
Problem for Starmer is that some of these fights aren't battles, they're wars.
The WFA will be mostly forgotten in a year, as will Grangemouth, the Net Zero and NHS will be ongoing throughout this Parliament and beyond, and the Child Benefit Cap issue will come back.
At least with the NHS, the option is there to keep the public onside, the rest, not so much as reality starts to bite.
And how many fronts does he want to fight on? And how many is he prepared to let collapse in order to win others?
I do not expect anything at all to come of Starmer's "reforms" of the NHS. His plans as laid out consisted of "digitisation", ie more humungously expensive failed IT projects, "more care in the community instead of hospitals" - basically meaningless and unachievable, and - wait for it - a focus on prevention rather than cure - that is, exactly what was said at the launch of the whole farrago back in 1940-whatever: everyone will become so healthy that we won't need a health service. None of this will achieve anything.
He didn't say a word about the actual reforms that are needed, ie not having a nationalised monolithic service in the first place.
Nothing will change.
Elby - The pandemic was the point at which I lost all trust in our ruling class. They are lunatics.
EK, yup. Us two as well. The Diamond Princess, a perfect test case with controls made it clear Covid was no worse than the annual 'flu. And these ONS stats on those who died solely FROM Covid, showing <10k in 21 months, ille est, an average of 15 per diem. So not even an epidemic...
https://www.ons.gov.uk/aboutus/transparencyandgovernance/freedomofinformationfoi/covid19deathsandautopsiesfeb2020todec2021
TWO under the age of 14 - even this lay person knew that unless severely compromised already, kids don't get Covid, as their ACE-2 receptors, which the spike protein uses to enter and infect cells, are not developed.
I'd think think that far more kids were killed and damaged by the jabs than by Covid.
"Caeser Hēméra
Problem for Starmer is that some of these fights aren't battles, they're wars.
The WFA will be mostly forgotten in a year"
Hmmm. Not so sure about that. Given that he seems to be going for pensioners and poor single people with a vengeance, I think not. For example, they are clearly thinking of dumping the Council Tax allowance for single people. That's going to clobber many, such as our neighbour, an 89 year old widower.
An insurance based system as per many countries in Europe the way to go. But that would be such a major transition that whoever was in power, they'd mess it up completely. We have made it quite clear that we are completely incapable of seeing through major projects, of any sort
https://edmhdotme.wpcomstaging.com/why-the-health-service-works-in-france-11-2022/
"This is particularly so in the NHS, where the dogma that the government has to be directly responsible from taxation for the administration and supply of health care have been inbuilt for so long. It seems that from its earliest days the NHS that was set up as if patients were incapable of having any responsibility for their own health and therefore the government had to take on that administrative responsibility. This may be one of the reasons why the NHS has been continually overburdened with self-perpetuating and ever-growing bureaucracy."
No fear, Two-Tier. Go for it, laddie. You're not frightened to traduce your late father, why should you be frightened by an angry population? Especially since they have form for snoozing through the most outrageous government misbehaviour.
Wokeypedia: "The subjects that he chose for specialist study in his last two years at school were mathematics, music and physics, in which he achieved A level grades of B, B and C." Even with only a C in physics he really ought to be capable of critical thought about the whole Nut Zero nonsense. But apparently not.
@ EK: so which government(s) worldwide do you consider handled the pandemic in an exemplary fashion?
Sweden. Assumed that their citizens would use that old concept, long gone in most places, of "personal responsibility". In the USA, Florida and a couple of other states - one of the Dakotas I think - didn't lock down and did just fine.
Lockdown was pointless. No Respiratory virus has been stopped until it has run its natural course. So lockdown simply delayed it - witness NZ and China who got it big time when they came out of full lockdown. This pay person knew what I wrote above re respiratory viruses, so the "experts" MUST have known. That Covid was handled in lock step all over the works suggests strongly this was an exercise in gauging the compliance of populations all over the world, and from that point of view, a huge success, as Prof Pantsdown Ferguson noted publicly.
Maybe being run by technocrats might work were they actually "experts "in whatever. What is clear is that above all they were ideologues first and foremost, and the application of that ideology the foremost object
Michie, for example, an avowed Commie. Now high up in the WHO, preparing the next "pandemic" for us. In that TB and Malaria kill far more than "pandemics" was once a concern to the WHO. No longer. Anything run by the CCP and Gates is our enemy - and donors - Gates the largest non state donor - get to say HOW their money is spent.
So not on what we know WORKS in the Third World - i.e. clean water and sanitation - rather on jabbing campaigns in Third World countries with far laxer testing regimes than in the West. Tho' Covid showed we are no better
Do read Daniel Jupp's "The Gates of Hell", especially on Gates Polio campaign in India which left close to half a million paralysed.
And this
https://digitalcommons.law.ggu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1205&context=annlsurvey
"2017
Accountability of International NGOs: Human Rights Violations in Healthcare Provision in Developing Countries and the Effectiveness of Current Measures"
"ABSTRACT
In recent years, the number of non-governmental organizations (NGOs)
working in the international arena has vastly increased, generally making
a positive impact. But, as this influence has deepened, governments in
the developing world and scholars have scrutinized the work and accountability of NGOs given they are mostly independent and not subjected to international law. While NGOs must adhere to the domestic
laws of the places within which they work, adherence is dependent upon
the strength of enforcement of those laws. Proponents argue that this
independence is essential for NGOs to effectively carry out their work.
However, a review of healthcare programs funded by the Bill & Melinda
Gates Foundation (Gates Foundation) calls into question current accountability measures of NGOs in the healthcare sector and can shine a light on weaknesses and potential areas of improvement in the current accountability regime for NGOs."
The new National Energy System Operator run by the government is going to fuck up the grid before any issues with unreliable renewals cause problems.
So no more money for the NHS unless it reforms, but...
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/09/13/starmer-i-had-to-cut-winter-fuel-allowance-to-save-the-nhs/
What really really pisses me off about this first rate shit (my old man's most damning condemnation of whoever) is that given the endless contradictions and flip-flops he indulges in, he thinks we are too stupid to notice.
Well on the road to becoming the most unpopular PM in history.
Not that that will worry him
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