Fireworks night coming, and £125 million is all the Budget can muster for GB Energy in '25-26. What a pathetic little squib. £100m for a handful of lame investments and £25m for setting up an office in Aberdeen.
I'm warming to the Tory energy woman Claire Coutinho (MP), who is showing signs of becoming a good Opposition tactician. A year ago she was the newly minted energy secretary at DESNZ, which represented meteoric promotion for a very new MP. But she had no time to make a mark, really, because by then it was a lame duck administration. Since the election, she's laid down two clever markers that I've noticed: the first was coming out against Drax - which is Good Politics. (She never liked it, unlike the moronic Shapps, her predecessor at DESNZ). Drax is going down, and will take Miliband's 2030 decarb target with it, hoho. And aside from those who benefit from the employment it provides - fair enough - nobody likes it.
Next, she put down a clever amendment to the GB Energy Bill, seeking to commit GBE to fulfilling the Lab manifesto promise of lowering everyone's electricity bills - £300 p.a. reductions for residential customers was the final manifesto offer (having been a pre-manifesto promise of a completely, transparently ludicrous £1,400 p.a. reduction before the immediate run-up to the GE). Even that £300 ain't gonna happen. So not only has Miliband carefully stopped talking about it, he whipped Labour MPs to vote against CC's motion. Trivial stuff, but adding another twig to the birch with which to flog Labour.
Open thread - your views on the Budget
ND
38 comments:
In all the talk of "budget black holes" why is the £100bn per annum the government already borrows never mentioned?
Hiding behind a facade of rather half-hearted support (obviously mandatory for a Grauniad writer), this is actually quite a scathing crit
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/oct/31/rachel-reeves-labour-budget-willing-spend-two-dangers
The OBR report wasn't the clever idea Reeves obviously thought it would be
Why do I rob banks - because that's where the money is. Rachel has staved off the breakdown in public service for a bit and kicked recovery/increase in the UK's home grown economy down the road for a bit longer.
In the circs that is about all she can do. Remember Minford was smart enough to see manufacturing was best done by others but not smart enough to see what would continue to productively employ the masses. No one has come up with a satisfactory answer to that one. Ms Coutinho is out the same barrel, smart but shallow with no real answers.
The very existence of GB Energy points to its problem. So far as green energy is concerned Adam Smith's Invisible Hand is only there for the subsidies. There is little or no unsubsidised wealth to be had in 'Green' despite 'Green' being a route to avoiding (far off) death and destruction for us all. Otherwise the Invisible Hand would be building Green power stations left and right.
An uncomfortable conundrum neither Reeves nor Miliband nor Coutinho can answer.
jim - "Minford was smart enough to see manufacturing was best done by others"
And on that one, fundamental error has been built The Decline Of The West and The Rise Of The East.
And the West still had Germany, until *cough* "someone" severed its main energy artery. It's looking pretty poorly now.
Trump, should he win the election in America, has mooted replacing income tax with tariffs. He has also promised a shift away from globalisation, using tariffs to protect American industry.
Practically every single economist says he's a moron for even thinking that this will work.
Yet this presupposes that the function of the economy is to maximise 'efficiency', whatever that is, and not the maximal well-being of citizens.
The economy should work to the benefit of the people, not the other way round.
It is increasingly apparent that we are seen as no more than tax-serfs for the elites and politicians to fleece than anything else.
Overall, a bit of a curates egg, with more than a whiff of Osborne - the unravelling of IHT changes with farmers, forced to admit workers will feel it in the pay packet after saying they wouldn't, all has an air of Pasty Tax about it.
If they start moving on reform of the public sector, and adjacent, it'll look better in that light as reforms would need a bit of investment to get going and start reducing the overall costs. Of course that will mean some arguments with the unions, Streeting might be up for that, not sure who else in the government would be. The 2% productivity improvements sounds rather like one of those targets that could be achieved via massaging the figures, as opposed to genuine improvements, that New Labour so loved.
As for GB Energy, surely the 125 million is something of a backhanded compliment? Here you go Ed, have a plastic Fischer Price "My First Green Energy" toy for crimbo, now go play nicely whilst mummy and daddy watch TikTok videos so we can forget how much we hate each other.
It's frustrating as there are a pile of technological problems that _could_ help reduce CO2 and reliance on coal/gas if solved, and the UK is more interested in the internal market in hair shirts.
People are trying to figure out how to "coke" iron with hydrogen - there's a use for your favourite colour of hydrogen right off the bat - make plastics from other primary sources that oil and coal dust, lignin for example, and there are probably reams of others.
Any single one could provide a nation with a nascent industrial base around it, and no end of customers to sell the end product, or even just licence the tech to. Instead we're going to compete with China on electric cars and batteries are we? Not with high energy and labour costs we won't. At least something novel gives you a lead time before that kicks in.
A 125 million bet on one of those might not pan out either, but we'd get a better and longer term payout.
@anon 9:18 - Germany didn't do risk management.
If you're an addict, and the only dealer you buy from has a tendency to kick off with their neighbours, don't be too surprised if your supply disappears.
At least no one is gushing about how Germany proves you can have green energy and industry anymore. It's like the Scooby Doo meme, Fred has pulled off the monster mask marked "Green Energy", and lo and behold, it's the caretaker called Russ Ian Enner-Gee underneath.
CH - we'll have to agree to disagree about who did the kicking off. I believe the current CIA director had a few things to say about it in 2007, when he was Ambassador to Moscow.
“NATO enlargement, particularly to Ukraine, remains “an emotional and neuralgic issue” for Russia, but strategic policy considerations also underlie strong opposition to NATO membership for Ukraine and Georgia. In Ukraine, these include fears that the issue could potentially split the country in two, leading to violence, or, some claim, even civil war, which would force Russia to decide whether to intervene.”
Bill Burns could see the future!
What is required is honesty from the politicians, so it won't happen.
They need to tell the voters they can't have everything they want. Government has to do less - and ideally do what is left better.
Our economy can't support the high welfare state expectations that the majority seem to think is a "right".
You only have to look at the BBC article with "ordinary" people commenting on the budget. One is on PIP (sick) and taking in £33k per annum. It's more than the average wage, so why work?
Even "intelligent" voters are pretty stupid. The most-read story on the Guardian this morning was a plea for euthanasia/"assisted dying" legalisation. By a senior end of life consultant*? A nurse with umpteen years experience? The drummer of Blur.
* although as the Church declines, new figures step into their shoes as moral arbiters, and doctors aren't at all backward in coming forward.
And very slowly the tectonic plates shift ..
https://www.ft.com/content/b1104594-5da7-4b9a-b635-e7a80ab68fad
"Skydio, the US’s largest drone maker and a supplier to Ukraine’s military, faces a supply chain crisis after Beijing imposed sanctions on the company, including banning Chinese groups from providing it with critical components. Skydio is rushing to find alternative suppliers after Beijing’s move, which also blocks battery supplies from its sole provider, said people familiar with the situation."
Still, "manufacturing is best done by others".
https://www.suasnews.com/2024/10/chinas-sanctions-on-skydio/
"We have always manufactured our drones in the U.S., and over the last few years we invested massively in bringing up supply for drone components outside of China. Batteries are one of the few components we have not yet moved out of China. We have a substantial stock of batteries on hand, and our team was already developing alternative suppliers. But right now we don’t expect new sources to come online until the spring of next year. In order to continue delivering X10s and supporting our customers, we have to take the drastic step of rationing batteries to one per drone. I know how critical drones are to your work, and how important having additional batteries is for many of your missions. It pains me to do this. We are extending the software license, warranty, and support term for all drones fulfilled with less than a full complement of batteries by the length of time it takes us to deliver all batteries in the kit. This is a clarifying moment for the drone industry. If there was ever any doubt, this action makes clear that the Chinese government will use supply chains as a weapon to advance their interests over ours. "
Fancy using sanctions as a weapon!
Couple of quotes from the former junior tea lady at the BoE:
"It will mean that businesses will have to absorb some of this through profits" and "I decided the right thing to do was to ask businesses and the wealthiest in our country to pay a bit more".
She obviously has no idea who the incidence of rising costs on business hits. They'll put up prices to maintain profits which will mean higher inflation and less purchasing power for the "working person".
"The sell-off of UK government bonds has gathered pace, pushing yields sharply higher following the budget. The yield, or interest rate, on the 10-year gilt jumped as much as 15 basis points and is now 14bps higher at 4.481%."
Bit of local news.
Two x solicitor firms in town.
Both rushed off their feet today. With people selling up.
Second homes, mostly.
And anything capital gainsey.
RR has certainly created a boost to the housing market of available homes. Over £1,000,000
Have you checked who authorises changes to tariffs in the US? Can be done at the stroke of a Sharpie pen. Of course, such an individual might be persuaded to overlook certain sectors on a quid-pro-quo to a family member such as a son-in-law.
"Prior to the 1930s, Congress usually set tariff rates itself. As U.S. and global tariff rates increased during the Great Depression, U.S. exports decreased. Congress responded by authorizing the President to negotiate reciprocal trade agreements that reduced tariffs through proclamation authority up to a pre-set boundary. Hence, such an agreement could enter into force without further implementing legislation"
If there is anyone interesting in double-entry bookkeeping, they should look not only at taxes but also expenditure - specifically in-work-benefits and housing benefit. If the government stopped subsiding employers by raising the living wage, and stopped subsiding BTL landlords, then we might start living within our means.
"If the government stopped"... "then we might start living within our means".
OTOH the governments of China, Japan, Korea are intimately linked with and indeed control industrial policy. They allow and encourage cartels - which because cartel members share research results, seem to do better for productivity than pure competition.
Sixty years ago the UK was in the forefront of many technologies - mostly ones developed in wartime under tight government control. China was starving.
She'll be back for further bites next year. What's likeliest?
Really? No Japanese conglomerate wants China in its supply chain if it can possible help it and some big names are ending all China dependence in their product lines. For example https://www.hvacinformed.com/amp/news/japan-daikin-air-conditioners-chinese-parts-co-1570611277-ga.1669736579.html
COIVD was a wake up call. The alarm bell has only gotten louder since then. There’s a reason for that sucking sound you can hear in FDI in China. Of course these things take time and there’s always some laggards who don’t read the memo. Best not to have them in *your* critical dependencies, either.
Fancy thinking having friends in all the wrong places wouldn’t have consequences for how your former friends now view your new bessie mates https://www.ft.com/content/bcb1d331-5d8e-4cac-811e-eac7d9448486
She'll have to be, aren't the IFS saying they're 9bn short?
off piste - but rumor going round Barrow that police looking for men with snow on their boots because of fire in shipyard !!!!
If, as reported, the fire was on the rubber blocks covering an Astute-class submarine, presumably Agincourt, that's a damn expensive fire - and that's before you consider the refit of the huge building shed.
re snow on boots, any Ukrainians being trained in the area?
No. Really. The Tories are done. They just need to get out of the way.
Yes. Ukrainians are still being trained in Britain (from a bloody good source.) And the Chinese are being trained by ex RAF fighter pilots. The whole thing is utterly stark raving bonkers.
@ek
Loose lips sink ships
it's no secret we're training Ukes, I saw some at Catterick last summer. Must say I'm surprised no one's had a quiet word with ex-military people coaching in China, though.
PS - "Europe’s manufacturing production fell for the 19th month in a row in October"
https://www.theguardian.com/business/live/2024/nov/04/oil-prices-opec-ryanair-fares-bank-of-england-us-election-trump-harris-ftse-100-pound-business-live-news?page=with:block-67288de28f08b3d97c364ddd#block-67288de28f08b3d97c364ddd
big hits to EU solar panel production as well. Lots of scaling back and factory closures.
21 percent
The central bank raised Russia's benchmark interest rate to 21 percent during its regular monetary policy meeting. That makes borrowing in the country even more expensive than at the start of Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, when the central bank sharply increased interest rates to calm the economy.
25 Oct 2024
7 per cent renewables today
20 percent the past week.
Nirvana may be a long way off, folks
yes, not a lot of wind - 2% today, 1% solar. Gas 59%.
Construction site fires usually caused by lamps or heaters left on and poor firewatching. Embarrassing so conjure mysterious bad hats on a secure site.
I looked at the Green Finance Institute - and sighed. More Oxbridge brains that look like achieving nothing but cost. The one thing a physics PhD should teach you is you can't fool Nature. But that message is 'unhelpful'.
Would we be better off if we sent the products of Balliol etc to the checkouts at Tesco etc and sent the products of Romford Comp to Westminster? Madness is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.
@ jim
When in the supermarket (i.e. Tesco) one wants to be quickly dealt with at the checkout. You don't want some useless duffer from Balliol having to get the supervisor out every 2 seconds when they run into a simple problem they can't solve.
No, the answer to the Balliol problem is rope and lamp posts.
"Would we be better off if we sent the products of Balliol etc to the checkouts at Tesco etc and sent the products of Romford Comp to Westminster? Madness is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result."
Yes we would be better off. I've said for some time that candidates for government should be selected from those with practical trades, not intellectual achievements. I'd rather have a good bricklayer or cook in No 10 over another lawyer or PPE degree holder. Indeed over any degree holder in fact. Holding a degree should be an automatic bar to public office IMO.
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