Those few very-longtime readers we still attract, might recall I spent a while on business in The Gambia a decade ago, and very educational it was, too. One of the things I learned was that by the time of roundabout now (i.e. 2025) The Gambia would have become an *Economic Superpower*. Sic! You can read about it here, in this rambling presidential state-of-the-nation address of the time from His Excellency Sheikh Professor Alhaji Dr Yahya Jammeh Babili Mansa.
And what a state the nation was in! (E.g. no 'phones in my "4-star" Sheraton, no reliable electricity, etc etc.) But I think his noble mission has failed. He's no longer around to carry the can, however: he was deposed shortly afterwards in an unusually peaceful coup.
Which brings us to Starmer, Reeves, Miliband, and their curious brand of self-aggrandizing nonsense. First, you recall, we are to become a "Clean Energy Superpower" - by 2030, I believe. That's without having a manufacturing base for solar panels, wind turbines, even steel these days (can we still manage concrete?), nor a workforce of adequate skills or size. Perhaps "clean-energy-equipment importing superpower"? But it doesn't have quite the same grandiose ring, does it? Everyone in the government photo (from the link above) seems to think it's pretty funny, and I'm sure we all get the joke.
 |
| What, and defence too? Minister, stop, I'll wet myself!! |
Anyhow, not satisfied with this newly-minted aspirational status, we are also now to become a "Defence Industrial Superpower"! And that, too, without, errr, a manufacturing base for chips, steel, ... etc etc.
Amazing stuff. I am sure the rest of the world's minor powers are shaking in their boots. With laughter. Meanwhile, our bold triumvirate of superpower-mongers might care to study the fate of his Gambian Excellency.
ND
48 comments:
The irritating thing is, we could have been making an industry out of green had we invested rather than shoe gazed.
We don't generate enough CO2 that Net Zero will have an impact, and what we could have been is a force multiplier. There are plenty of post-fossil fuel opportunities in the realm of plastics, fertilisers, and fuels.
The Tories and Labour would eschew the plough, and instead hire cheap labour to work the fields instead.
We do have a chip *design* success in ARM, which a forward thinking government might have built a fab and started down the line of military designs, which ARMs low-power chips are excellent for.
Space and Defence are two areas which brew innovation, and Things That Can Be Sold, and with our education system still quite valued abroad, could have been used to bring in some bright minds.
We're a bit Man United, thinking we should still be amongst the big boys, but years of mismanagement behind the scenes, short term thinking, and switching managers, but are looking like becoming perennial relegation dodgers before, as with the likes Charlton Athletic, the trapdoor can no longer be evaded.
OT - how long is Trump going to ignore the market carnage? Given his intentions with the tariffs change almost daily - is it about re-shoring? Is it about replacing income taxes? Is it about trade? - with only the re-shoring making much sense.
The level of thought being put into it too - it's becoming plain they walked down a generated list, rather than thinking about it, other neither penguins nor Losotho would have been hit - shows a depressing measure of ineptitude.
Add in Bessant's claims over the drops were about DeepSeek, and it's clear it's even amateur hour at spinning.
Companies will not be able to re-shore at a rate to outpace the damage being caused, nor can farmers pivot on crops quickly.
If it continues throughout the week, we may see claims of success before Easter, along with some reverse ferreting.
At last M. Hemera and I agree on something!
"The Tories and Labour would eschew the plough, and instead hire cheap labour to work the fields instead."
We will know if the United Kingdom is at all a serious country when the hand car wash vanishes. I'm not placing any bets.
I see the Newport Wafer fab plant, one of our very few microelectronics manufacturers, has been sold to an American firm - the original idea was to sell it, like the Scunthorpe steel works, to China.
Seems to be a lot of drum-beating in the media re nasty Ivan's potential for maritime naughtiness.
"Nearly 40 per cent of the UK's gas supply is imported from Norway, much of which comes through the single, 700-mile Langeled pipeline. Concerns that the Russians are planning a sabotage operation have escalated since one of their spy ships, the Yantar, was detected mapping the UK's critical underwater infrastructure in the North Sea in recent months. With the UK reported to have come close to blackouts during the past winter – saved only by emergency reserves and electricity imported undersea from Denmark – security experts have argued that British households should follow the example of the EU, which has advised citizens to pack a three-day survival kit."
What kind of brutes could possibly blow up a gas pipeline?
Well, yes and no.
I’d agree that ignoring Starmer’s Chemical Ali-level “the hydrocarbons infidels are throwing themselves under our wind turbines” levels of delusional hyperbole.
And yet, seeing past that, we are genuinely in the mists of radical change. Last year, hydrocarbons dropped below 75% of the UK’s energy mix (https://www.current-news.co.uk/record-renewable-generation-in-2024-with-highest-capacity-increase-since-2017/). Even with the government’s ineptitude and back-handed energy transition programme, it’s not hard to see this dropping to well under 50 in 10 years or so.
Then think about most industrial economies doing something like that too. Maybe a bit more. Maybe a bit less. But similar/ This will have a truly profound effect on the global economy. A slow-motion (so it won’t be a smack in the face level of observable effects and coverage for the media) version Trump Tariffs, multiplied by 10.
Hydrocarbons in sunset and run-off will be revolutionary for many countries and industries.
" how long is Trump going to ignore the market carnage? "
Ah, yes the 'market carnage' thats taken the indexes all the way back to where they were ooh, 12 months ago. It may have escaped you but since the middle of 2022 the markets have been on an absolute tear, and valuations have gotten even further out of whack that they were in 2007, all on the back of this stupid AI mania. When this market bottoms out at a level not seen for 6 or 7 years (as happened in the Dot-com crash), then you can talk about 'market carnage'.
I am usually one to see the skill during the madness of Trump. Rattle that cage. Shake up those bureaucrats! Break the chains. Loosen those bottlenecks. Cut the government’s bloated costs.
The Maga Message
This Tarriff business is looking, very, very much something the Korbyn’s might have concocted. During a council of Junior Kommisars of industry during a soup and sandwiches evening. Deciding which capitalist running dog nation was the most evil of all. Ranking their little lists.
And then, even worse, which other members of the communist fraternity of the brotherhood of world socialism, couldn’t be trusted to be the heirs of true Marxist-Leninism. Looking at you China. Looking at you Vietnam! splitters!
sticking flag pins of hate into a geography student’s globe.
The Tarriffs don’t include services. So it’s not a true balance of trade. Doesn’t allow for nations supplying strategic resources the USA needs to manufacture within the USA. Doesn’t differentiate allies and axis. Enemies and friends. Doesn’t account for USA foreign policy that has been used to keep the crazy and debtor nations from falling to the China, Islamist, Russia, orbit.
Quite astonishingly. For what will be the pivotal moment in world trade. It appears to have all been done on the back of a vape packet after work. In some Washington Bar.
Rushed into action without the most cursory thought for what will happen when not everyone bows down. And what will happen down the line, to even those that will.
You would think, if you were going to reinvent world trade, you’d have spent a little longer deciding how to do it.
One thing is for sure.
That ‘End of History’ liberalism won’t be heard from again.
Clive, I'm not sure if 50% of our energy will qualify as "sunset" or runoff. Just as "yesterday's fuel", coal, is today's fuel in China and India.
From Guardian comments
"Russia = 0% tariff. Proof positive that Trump is a Russian “asset”, the Manchurian Candidate for real, and yet he’s getting a free hand from all the supposed checks and balances in the US system, and cowering responses from so many of the victim nations, including the UK."
"Mit der Dummheit kampfen die Gotter selbst vergebens", or something like that with a couple of umlauts.
Check the "formula" these arrant twats are using to add a *scientific* gloss to their vape-packet vagaries:
https://ustr.gov/issue-areas/reciprocal-tariff-calculations
Obviously they got ChatGPT to hatch that web-page for them. With the following prompt:
"Design a web-page to explain the inexplicable, in the style of an economics text book on US government notepaper, with five citations from random plausible academic papers, incorporating the words BILATTERAL and ELASTISTY, (but check the speling)"
@sobers - we may yet see that. If you're after a market correction, maybe only blow the bloody doors off?
We are, however left, with a great philosophical quandary, which is - how do panicans like their covfefe?
On the plus side, the oil price drops means the Russians are giving the brown trousers a sartorial outing.
If that keeps on going, we'll see the Kremlin pasted up on Rightmove.
On the plus side, filling up won't be such a pain in the wallet. On the down side, there's still rates, water rates (up around 45% from last year!), and electricity of course. Most expensive in G7?
I'm just horrified at the umpire's LBW against Brett D'Oliviera.
My comment was originating from a thought-experiment I did. Suppose the US, maybe assisted by Israel too, took military action against Iran. What would be the effect on energy prices? “Significant” would I think cover it.
It’s perfectly plausible oil heads for the stratosphere, maybe $250/barrel for a week before “calming” to “only” $200-ish for an extended period, let’s say a year as tensions continued to bubble away.
What would happen in the short and medium term? Even as little as 10 years ago, consumers would have had zero, none, nada, choice but to just like it or lump it. But now? Not so much. Anyone with a 50-100 mile daily drive would be out buying used EVs, currently priced in the doldrums (you can get a 5 year old Nissan Leaf with low mileage for £8,000). Manufacturers could sell every new one they could produce. Within two to three years, EVs would make up 20-30% of cars on the road. Who’d care then, about the price of petroleum?
Similarly with electricity (gas and oil prices are fairly closely aligned). When Putin cut off Russian gas supplies in the winter quarter of 2021, I seriously considered solar panels. The payback time at the then-price of electricity was well under 5 years. Solar panel installers had less times of 6 months or more. Naturally I and others would dust off out spreadsheets again.
Five years of $150/barrel oil prices would give the energy transition a major kick up the arse. And once you’ve transitioned, there’s no going back. That’s big-time demand destruction. Once the cycle has played out, few would give a stuff about what happens in the Middle East.
Nah gonna happen, of course. Not the military action, I’m talking about there. The persistent increases in oil prices. Far from turning the thumbscrew on “the west” for its aggression, in less than a year, maybe even less than six months, faced with a speedy and irreversible flight from hydrocarbons, the hydrocarbon producers would want business — and cash flow — to be resumed as quickly as possible.
We’re not in 1973 and more. Or even 1980. Technological disruption is a thing, and it’s quietly being profound in its effects on geopolitical stability.
Too long a tale to go into here right not, but I’ll also leave this thought with you. Even if developing countries increase their hydrocarbon purchases, what are the big producers going to buy with all of their (largely Mickey Mouse) currencies they accumulate? And what happens when they realise those rupees and reals and pesetas are, how shall we say, rather rightly controlled by the countries which issue them (unlike the dollar)?
from your link:
"This failure was starkly exposed when Putin invaded Ukraine and British energy customers were amongst the hardest hit in Europe"
Erm.. was it Vlad The Invader who turned off supplies of oil and gas?
Yup.
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/gazprom-fails-book-more-gas-transit-europe-despite-kremlin-reassurance-2021-11-02/
Clive is right. In fact, even before that Nov '21 story, Putin had stopped all discretionary gas supplies to Europe in the summer of 2021, in order (a) to force Europe to go into winter 21-22 with lower-than comfortable gas storage inventories, and (b) to have Gazprom's gas clients, esp in Germany, lobby their governments to let him have his way for fear of freezing
that, coupled with 01.01.21 starting-pistol for post-covid economic recovery schemes in All Nations, is why the energy crisis had started long before Feb '22, and was in full swing by Sept-Oct 21. I first wrote about it in Feb '21 (that's 2021)
(obviously it was turbo-boosted by the actual invasion)
I like "Starmerite". It's like Kryptonite but instead of felling Superman it fells the whole population.
Except for the Top Tier of course.
Reading (admittedly on Telegram) that China are unloading $50bn of US Treasuries. Big if true. Is DJT trying to rebuild US industry by crashing the overvalued dollar?
"On the plus side, filling up won't be such a pain in the wallet. On the down side, there's still rates, water rates (up around 45% from last year!), and electricity of course."
So plus side, private enterprise getting those pesky hydrocarbons out of the ground and into your fuel tank. On the down side, government all the way down.........
"I'm just horrified at the umpire's LBW against Brett D'Oliviera."
Don't worry, they hung on, sadly, speaking as a ciderman.
Incidentally from my perspective the best thing to come out of covid was the free live streaming of the cricket County Championship. You can now watch just about any first class county game foc on youtube, with a decent commentary thrown in.
ND> 01.01.21 starting-pistol for post-covid economic recovery (obviously it was turbo-boosted by the actual invasion) ...is why the energy crisis had started long before Feb '22
I'm glad to see someone saying that - let's have some accuracy here unlike nearly all journos and MPs. A graph of the UK wholesale natural gas spot price from before the invasion to early 23 is linked below showing this, published by House of Commons Library. Interesting that by May/Jun 22 UK spot prices were near half that of Jan/Feb 22 before the invasion. Though they shot up again in Sep 22 - I guess because EU was refilling its gas storage at any price by then plus the sabotage of Nord Stream.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bf/UK_wholesale_spot_price_for_natural_gas%2C_2021-2022.png
Thanks, Mr W. Some of the anon BTL around here is pretty fact-free, but I wearily suppose there's some recognition involved, in being considered worth trolling
These tales are always fascinating (not that I am saying it’s not true, it’s certainly potentially true).
The far more interesting bit of the story, which we never get told, is what, exactly, they bought with the proceeds of the sale of the $50bn of US treasuries.
Me no troll, me long time reader since the great days of Alphaville and Markets Live. So sadly no crate of vodka or gold rubles under the floorboards, but I've been convinced since the early 2000s that US policy towards Russia was strategically foolish, and that the State Department and the thinktanks had too many senior people motivated by ancestral hatreds, and who thought Fiddler On The Roof was a documentary.
You can blame the State Department and MI6 for this, as it was reading the much-boosted Solzhenitsyn that made me interested in Russia, "that damn country of his". I'm sure I wouldn't like to live there, must drive Snowden potty.
Nothing wrong with any of that, but in a blog where energy traders frequent the BTL comments, not the smartest idea to try a re-run of Kremlin talking points such as “it was Europe which cut off Russian gas”.
Did Russia also suspend oil deliveries btw? I'm pretty sure I remember dockers on the Wirral refusing to unload a Russian oil cargo.
(whether something is a "Kremlin talking point" or not is irrelevant, though truth/falsity isn't)
Where, then, did you source your “Russia didn’t cut off gas supplies to Europe” information from? No European mainstream media outlet ran that story.
I just asked if Russia cut off gas and oil ! My memory was that at least the UK said "we don't want your steenkeeng gas".
"no European mainstream media outlet ran that story"
A nations rulers generally decide what news reporting is suitable for their purpose, which is why it appears to be compulsory to talk about Russia's "full scale invasion". To be honest I have very little trust in either governments or media, I like to read both pro-Russia and pro-Ukraine accounts and try and work out the truth from there. Front line changes are of course hard to hide. Sometimes a story gets through, like the reporting early on (March 22) that an army medic had ordered his staff to castrate Russian prisoners. Naturally a search will bring back lots of "Russians castrate prisoners" stories.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10636597/Ukrainian-doctor-tells-TV-interviewer-ordered-staff-CASTRATE-Russian-soldiers.html
Hahahaha! Chortle chortle.
“… have very little trust in either governments or media…”
Yet posts complete and utter falsehoods. After relying on “memory”. A memory which unfailingly only parrots pro-Russian tropes.
There’s relatively few rules in composing propaganda. You can be selective about which facts you pick. You can select topics which are favourable to the position being taken. So long as you are clear and concise.
But one thing which always undermines propaganda (and the propagandist) is being caught out lying. Very difficult to recover credibility from that.
Russian propaganda rarely tells outright lies. It is evasive. It lacks a connection with the reader. It is dull and almost totally humourless. But hardly ever does it tell whoppers.
So perhaps take a read of, say, tass.com. Learn some of their techniques. Then do feel free to pop back again and have another try.
I'm not sure, Clive, that you're posting with dignity and respect, which as Kier Starmer says are the two values that drive everything he does ;-)
Handbags aside for a moment, China has already started pivoting to pushing things through intermediaries, which is no surprise. Let's see how Trump responds to that
"Russian propaganda rarely tells outright lies. It is evasive. It lacks a connection with the reader. It is dull and almost totally humourless. But hardly ever does it tell whoppers."
A bit like the output of Western governments then.
Western governments, though, by contrast, do face public and political opponents and opposition. While slanted, selective presentation of facts and evasion of questions can (and is) used by western politicians and tame media in “their” camp, there are limits to this. Eventually (and Russian propaganda suffers from this noticeably) the evasion is *so* gratuitous, the presentation of arguments is *so* slanted and self-serving, a neutral observer would inevitably call into question the honesty of what they were being told.
Lies, in other words, can arise not just through outright falsehoods but also when dissembling and bias become so overwhelming, way beyond simple making a case in a favourable light, that an ostensibly plain listing of (on the face of it) facts becomes distortion to the extent of untruths.
The other problem unique to Russian propaganda is that it is repetitive (the same list of grievances is rehashed again and again) and deals in abstracts which a reader can find hard to relate to (“Wall Street neoliberal elites”, “the Global South”, “western aggression”). Little thought is given for how to be entertaining, interesting or to establish a rapport with the reader or listener. Say what you like about, for example, Boris Johnson, he was amusing and memorable and had a particular style of delivery. That didn’t make him good, but at least you weren’t bored. Russian, having a captive internal audience has little opportunity to develop and polish narrative creation and vivid, engaging storylines.
I've dilated on my views about the Russian character oft before.
They are, at the same time, (a) very good at reading between the lines**; but (b) "believing" the crap, in some strange way. It's a bit like "well obviously this is crap, but it's our crap". I find this has religious echoes: "well obviously transubstantiation is, errr, a bit odd - but it's what we believe"
Orwell, of course, suggested "Doublethink" as the technique involved. Western psychologists use "cognitive dissonance" - at least, when the doublethink is causing psychological disquiet: but that's what is notably missing from many Russians, which is why I reach for a religious-type explanation
I'll post on this in a short while
______________________
** a classic is the formula for how successful Ukrainian drone attacks are reported. The drone was shot down, and fragments from the destroyed missile landed on the ammunition depot and set it alight.
Generally followed by: There were no casualties. This is after every Russian Telegram channel has posted vids of several mighty blasts and a mushroom cloud
" While slanted, selective presentation of facts and evasion of questions can (and is) used by western politicians and tame media in “their” camp, there are limits to this."
My experience of living through covid would beg to differ.
"Lies, in other words, can arise not just through outright falsehoods but also when dissembling and bias become so overwhelming, way beyond simple making a case in a favourable light, that an ostensibly plain listing of (on the face of it) facts becomes distortion to the extent of untruths."
Like this you mean:
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/prime-minister-and-welsh-first-minister-together-we-will-supercharge-mission-to-make-britain-a-clean-energy-superpower
Not so sure about that. In the UK both the public and parliament were beginning to balk. There were the usual suspect “experts” calling for another lockdown in January 2023. Something-something-something “protect the NHS in its difficult winter crisis” stuff. But there was some equally fairly concerted pushback.
This is an important lesson for any messaging (or propaganda, if you prefer). Repeating the same thematic content unchanged lessens impact with each telling. There has to be some progress, some development. And you have to know and understand your audience. This is very difficult to do. One day, calling your opponents Nazis has a shocking, arresting effect. It grabs attention and emphasises the seriousness of the allegations you’re making. The next day, everyone is a Nazi, everything has become fascist and you find yourself, like I did only last week, saying someone was literally Hitler for putting the milk in before the tea. There’s always a tipping point in any influencing efforts where everything changes. Knowing — or not knowing — when that’s happened is essential but very tricky. Yesterday’s must-have attention-grabbing communication is today’s hackneyed boring over-used boreathon.
I get “ Page not found” from that link but did want to see what messaging tricks were involved. Do you have a working link?
Try it again. Clive, it worked OK for me.
It's the usual Starmerite BS, August 2024 vintage - which means, by that date he'd already dropped the promise to lower everyone's electricity bills
It does have the "energy superpower" bollocks - and of course "clean power by 2030" which at that point was still "clean = 100% renewable (and, ahem, nukes and biomass)". The sleight of hand by which this became "clean = 95%-and-that's-always-what-we-meant", came a bit later.
"Not so sure about that. In the UK both the public and parliament were beginning to balk. There were the usual suspect “experts” calling for another lockdown in January 2023. Something-something-something “protect the NHS in its difficult winter crisis” stuff. But there was some equally fairly concerted pushback."
Boris was within days (maybe hours) of locking everyone down for Christmas 2021, over rising Omicron cases, based on data provided by Whitty and the Health Blob that was shown in Cabinet by (IIRC) Rishi Sunak to be totally out of date, and frankly borderline fraudulent. Thats what we have to deal with - a Civil Service thats gone rogue, and will tell the politicians any amount of lies to get what it wants. You can't believe anything the State tells you in the West - it will say black is white (or a man is a woman) if it suits its ideology or just its own blatant self interest. The Truth doesn't come into it.
What we have in the West is worse than in Russia - everyone there knows the State will lie about everything. Here many still think the State will generally tell the truth. Which allows it to lie with impunity.
@ Sobers - What we have in the West is worse than in Russia
That's not a phrase that should lightly find its way into print, in any context
Read "Goodbye to Russia" by Rainsford
https://www.waterstones.com/book/goodbye-to-russia/sarah-rainsford/9781526670373
Thanks ND, worked okay, must have been, er, operator error.
Trying a bit of analysis of this little doozy according to the established propaganda rules, lets see where we go.
1) Be simple.
2/10. There are a couple of key messages (commitment to renewables, increasing generation assets thanks to government investment) but they get lost in minor secondary points.
2) Be clear.
3/10. There's good factual evidence used to support the message, but it's hard to put this in context and, if anything, there's too many numbers scattered around. The relationship, if any, between renewables and consumer energy costs is asserted, but not proven with the data provided.
3) Appeal to strong, universal, motives
7/10. Renewables are better than hydrocarbons for the environment and this topic is emphasises and audiences should, one assumes, be receptive.
4) Give an impression of absolute conviction
8/10. Government is often (legitimately) criticised for vacillation and flip-flopping, but this piece makes clear the government is in this for the long-term.
5) Do not create antagonism by arguing issues other than the main one
0/10. Needlessly political and the devolution tie-ins the content gets dragged to are ridiculous and unnecessary.
(cont. from above, comment is too long (!) to fit in a single post)
6) Be interesting
4/10. A dry topic is brought to life somewhat but to piece is just too long to retain the attention of all but the most enthusiastic supporter.
7) Be relevant to the audiences' own life
5/10. Consumers' energy costs are referenced, but there are no concrete nor any transactional offer ("do this and your bills will fall by £X in Y years").
8) Know your audience, group by group
1/10. The piece does not elucidate who it is aimed at. The introduction makes clear the aim of the policy is to reduce end-user energy costs. But energy consumers vary widely. Retail users are low consumption, relatively speaking, but energy can be a high proportion of their household costs. Industrial users are big consumers individually but not always is the energy cost a big factor in their overheads. Consumers don't just value price -- reliability is also involved. How are different users' needs to be met or, if there are compromises, how are these to be managed?
9) Preferably flatter or, as a minimum, do not antagonise the audience
0/10. A preachy, condescending style and an assumption that the audience is already signed up to the renewables agenda is used throughout. Often descends into "everybody knows that..." style which lacks credibility and risks making the audience feel like they are being taken for granted.
10) Build up the self-esteem of the audience
6/10. There is a recognition that the audience has suffered (through high energy costs) and that the government understands it must do something to address this. Voters count and this government does not want to see them subject to persistent unpleasant events.
11) Give an impression of objectivity
0/10. Renewables are contentions and a government has to govern for all the population (or at least be seen to try to). No acknowledgement is even attempted that there are naysayers and that there are valid counter-augments to renewables as a cornerstone of energy policy.
12) Don't tell obvious lies
10/10. There was nothing obvious in the piece which was false (although there were significant omissions, but it is not strictly-speaking the job of the proponent of a message to make out the case for their opponents)
13) Conform to the policy of your government
10/10. Government policy was not contradicted and was strongly reenforced. Even if the audience was agnostic or even antagonistic to the theme of renewable energy, the government, in this piece, was at least being internally consistent.
I'd be fascinated to understand other readers' reactions of if they differed to mine. A perennial challenge for the propagandists is that you've little-to-no idea how your audience is reacting to your efforts. I've tried to make a fair assessment there of the quality of this piece, reading it as a neutral observer. But my opinion alone is just anecdotal -- what's needed (and what is fraught with difficulty) is a large range of individual reactions.
Clive - @ Nothing obvious in the piece which was false ...
"the UK’s over-reliance on fossil fuel markets" is a purely polemical bit of framing that skirts close to implying something outright false. But it does require a bit of argumentation to get it out in the open, I grant you
the previous UK government focused on fracking and fossil fuels
now that really is false
I was much too generous, wasn’t I!
When I saw that, the framing of “focused on” did a lot of the rhetorical heavy lifting to finesse the exact truth, but, as you say, a reasonable person, thinking reasonably, would inevitably conclude the last Conservative government was Trump-like in having a “drill, baby, drill” energy policy. Which it was, how shall we say politely, not at all.
"That's not a phrase that should lightly find its way into print, in any context"
Everyone knows in Russia you don't say something against the State (or Vlad, which is the same thing) or something nasty happens to you.
In the UK we still think we have freedom to say what we want, except we don't. Say something against Blob policy (note I don't mean government policy, I mean the ever present policies pursued by the unelected State Blob whoever is in nominal power) and you'll have the police on your tail. Mention grooming gangs, describe mass illegal immigration as an invasion, dare to criticise Blob employees, expect the knock (or sledgehammer) on your door. Dare to stand in the street with an inoffensive placard, get fined £10k. Run a website for hamster lovers, be threatened with a fine of £18m if anyone says some hurty words on it (but hey, OFCOM have promised they won't go after the little people!). Be a white man, sorry no job in the police force for you. Get arrested for violence in the streets, suddenly the PM is calling you a criminal before anything so trivial as a trial to determine guilt or not.
Its not objectively worse than Russia (yet) but the direction of travel of the entire West is obvious (hey, lets ban the political party that 25% of a country vote for!) and its worse in that most people don't realise the position we are in and where we are going. Standing still deep in the sh*t is one thing, wandering through ankle deep sh*t and approaching the edge of an unseen cess pit is another.
Just picking one at random (my social media feed is, incidentally, chock-a-block with people doing all those things and none have been subject to detriment) the people “stand[ing] in the street with an inoffensive placard” are Christian fundamentalists who have a field-force of activists opposing reproductive rights, gay marriage and agitate for a return to justice based on the bible. They are many things, but mere passive bystanders, they ain’t.
Put it this way, if I stood outside your house for hours at a time holding a banner saying “I’m here if you want to talk about this”, you’d be on the blower to the boys in blue having me moved on probably within in a few days and a week at most. If I persisted, you’d want firmer measures than that, if I and my friends were there round the clock for months on end, undeterred. It is hypocritical to expect others to tolerate that which you would not be prepared to tolerate yourself.
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