EDF and its nukes: "we're sh*t, and we know we are'

As so frequently stated hereabouts since forever (since 2007, to be precise), the whole point of French energy policy is to have someone else pay for France's humungous nuclear decommissioning liabilities. 

Now they'd like "negotiations" over Hinkley Point C and Sizewell C to be merged into one big financing deal.  Well, well.  

First of all, what "negotiations" are needed over HPC, pray?  We already have a definitive financing deal: a binding contract that clearly has EDF on the hook for the stonking cost overruns.  (Its alternative is to walk away: such is that inane deal, struck by the dickhead Osborne and signed by the fragrant May, that EDF is under no obligation to finish the thing at all.)  Do contracts signed by the French mean anything?  Silly question.

Second, why would we buy a second nuke - of the very same design - from the same imbeciles who clearly acknowledge they can't finish the first, under a different deal structure where we are on the hook for the inevitable overruns?

Is there any point in telling Starmer and Miliband to grow a pair - maybe just one pair between the two of them?  EDF are shit project managers; and successive governments have been shit negotiators.  Each deserves the other.

ND 

Net Zero contradictions: SNP/Green fallout is symptomatic

As argued here several times, governments are deeply ill-advised to set "legally binding targets" for Net Zero policies.  Well, LBTs for almost anything actually; because somebody litigious will be displeased when a target is missed.  How much time and energy can any government afford to spend defending such legal actions?  Yet that's what is happening increasingly across those parts of the world  - UK, EU, USA etc - where governments can be challenged in these ways by anyone with the wonga / sympathetic lawyers etc to muster a challenge (& make the challenge without getting a 'Visit' to dissuade them from their actions).  Since some of these targets are essentially out of reach, it's child's play to demonstrate the government is "not doing enough" (although there's a trap down that road for the litigant, we'll come on to later).    

One or both of two reactions are inevitable.  (i) Governments will take away the means for challenges to be mounted: (ii) they will row back from legally binding targets.  Whatever the attractions of the former to ministers not much concerned for good governance, without doubt the latter is the correct approach, in logic and in law. 

And in Scotland, on specifically the Net Zero issue we've just seen the SNP / Green coalition's first minister Humza Yousaf do exactly that.  It rather seems he did it without consulting the Greens - not much point, really - and now they are parting company, Yousaf unilaterally jumping the SNP out of the Coalition before they were pushed.  Similar things have happened in Germany on a somewhat less dramatic scale - no outright coalition ruptures yet - and doubtless in other places I haven't noticed.  

'Net Zero 2050' as a legally binding target has an odd history.  Many governments had vague 'ambitions' in that direction but as regards outright LBT it took a flailing, failing Theresa May to be the first in, with her hastily-conceived, un-deliberated bid for legacy-glory back in 2019.  It took everyone by surprise, not least Parliament, which shamefully spent next to no time on the legislation; but also a bewildered Climate Change Committee which had to gulp several times before endorsing it as even feasible**.  It then took on the nature of a global vogue.

I suppose it's obvious to even legacy-hungry PMs that legislating for a legally-binding 'end to climate change by 2050' would be preposterous.  But they really ought to take that thought seriously, and take the lesson on board.  For the same reason plus additional issues of pure logic, picking a second-order proxy like 'locally-produced CO2 emissions' for your LBT is almost as ridiculous (by its own lights, that is) without switching it to 'CO2 emitted as a consequence of local consumption'.  

But at least 2050 is a (fairly) long time into the future, to the point where a government defending a legal action can at least argue "how can you be sure we're not going to meet the LBT?"  Thus far, HMG has failed at this game by not convincing the courts it's doing very much at all.  But here's the danger for the litigious greens: the more a government appears to be doing (and right now, that's quite a lot, what with lengthy strategies - on paper - for new nukes, hydrogen, CCS, HPs, EVs etc etc, plus quite a bit of dosh) the more the greens need to 'prove' the run-rate isn't enough.  And in doing that, there's a risk they'll prove that the required run-rate is in fact substantially more than 36 per over, and can't be achieved by anybody.

But that's to get caught up in the fiction, because as suggested above, governments are not going to prolong their own agonies for much longer.  Really crass targets like the SNP/Green's annual increments adding up to an eventual 2050 end-game are just too easy to identify as impossible - so they have to be pulled.  

That case is just the most dramatic we've seen so far, and with the most immediate political consequences.  But will the SNP thereby lose votes, eh?  That isn't quite so obvious.  The Tories have softened a fair few lower-visibility targets already themselves, taking the 'ULEZ' gamble it'll help them a bit at the polls.  The soundness of that judgement may take a bit of calibrating if the GE is as much of a meltdown as many believe.  But Starmer never rushes in with a promise to 'reverse the reversal' in these matters, does he?

As with several things, let's check back at year-end to see how the land lies after all those 2024 GEs.  My guess is that across Europe and the USA, a slew of targets will have been softened.  That's partly for the avoidance of litigation, as above; partly for electoral calculations; and partly something I spotted the big oil companies concluding a while back.  "We've now had several years' experience to analyse; we've done the numbers, and checked them twice; they just don't add up."  

ND 

_____________

** which they only did making a bunch of caveats so sweeping, they might as well have said: sorry, it can't be done.

Government introduces its stellar defence procurement skills to energy sector!

+ + UPDATED + +   - see below

Defence projects are the bane of the taxpayer's existence.  (Along with NHS IT projects, PPS procurement etc etc etc).  Astonishing delays, budget over-runs, faulty products - all followed by rinse-and-repeat with exactly the same contractors.  Learn nothing; repeat; and get the same results.  Never fails.

And now we have HMG's pathetic attempts to get a new generation of nukes up and running.  I say 'new', but the EPR is by now a pile of discredited and distinctly old crap.  And yet, conned by EDF, stitched up by George Osborne, bullied by Francois Hollande and betrayed by her own personal weakness of character, in 2016 Theresa May signed up for the Hinkley Point 'C' contract, the exact terms of which we may never learn: but we know enough to say they are awful.  All the optionality - and it's very great indeed - lies with EDF.  What's more, EDF knows that if it huffs and puffs and lies a bit more, it can get unilateral, favourable changes to this one-sided contract that are even further in its favour.  For example, not long ago it obtained a three-year relaxation to the back-stop date for start-up, from 2033 to 2036.  That's for a project it initially said would start up by year-end 2017! (sic)

So after this week's update from EDF, where are we now?  Start-up-date maybe 2031 or 2032 ... cost, well anyone's guess really, but wildly higher than any number floated before.  And this just days after HMG put around £2.5 bn cash (that's c.a.s.h., upfront, not just a high HPC-type electricity price) into Sizewell 'C', the next monstrous would-be product of EDF's nuclear fantasy.  The big difference with SZC being that, unlike HPC where EDF has to swallow the over-runs, with SZC the taxpayer will do that because EDF has no intention of taking on any construction risk at all.  And Boris signed up for that (not just May, then, who's an airbrained git).  

Did I say EDF has to swallow the over-runs on HPC?  Well, thus far, that's what the contract says and that's how it looks.  But, lo!  The contract doesn't commit them to finish the project at all !  They just don't get to sell that pre-priced electricity if they don't.

However, we can all picture the scene.  It is 2034.  HPC looks sort-of finished, but beneath those big domes and concrete silos, vital bits are not yet ready - and EDF knows full-well they ain't gonna be finished by 2036.  So there will be no juicy, HMG-underwritten, 35-year electricity contract.  They've been cap-in-hand to President Le Pen for more money, but she's sent them away empty-handed.

They know what to do.  "Get Starmer in here" they shout, and he's duly brought in to hear their story.  

"Look here, Starmer, we've run out of money.  But you need the electricity really badly, right?  This HPC delay, and the parallel delay at SZC, have already scuppered your energy strategy, which assumed that BOTH plants would be up and running by 2030! (aside: hah!  that Ed Miliband, eh?  Sucker!!)  You've had three years of patchy blackouts already.  So: we need another, errr, let's say £4bn - well, make it £5bn, what's that between friends, hmm?  Now.  Cash.  And then - we PROMISE - we'll be up and running by Xmas 2037, just, errr, 20 years late.   And we'll have another little meeting - about SZC - next month.  Whadya say?  You don't really want to leave this thing standing here like a radioactive white elephant, do you??"

Watch and wait...

ND

UPDATE     ... but you won't be waiting for long!  See this story - published after I wrote the above post.  You (maybe) read it here first

Greta & the childrens crusade: it's over

We all saw Greta in action back in 2019-20 and - promoted by whatever adult agency was lurking in the background - how she captured attention and captivated gullible politicians; and how the 'Greta phenomenon' briefly led children out of the classroom, to stamp their feet a bit in public and demand that the grown-ups do, errrr, something.  Now, it seems, that's all over; and leftie-greens are, as so often, left to puzzle over how the Revolution didn't quite happen - again.  Here's a convoluted piece from the Grauniad, Where have all the young climate activists gone? which offers the thesis that they have gone quiet because they want to avoid being coopted for ‘youth-washing’ by nasty politicians and corporations.  (That's 'youth-washing' as in greenwashing, not as in ... and get yer bloody hair cut!, much as though some of them need a bath.)  Oh, and they realised they were distracting the world from the plight of the Global South, and other piteous gems: 

... climate politics was awash with ideas around children, the future, and intergenerational justice ... For a time, it seemed that a climate movement was emerging in which children acted simultaneously as the spark, inspiration and energy. This wave seemed unstoppable. But that moment has passed. [Now] media focus and activists themselves are placing less emphasis on age; it is often incidental, and less central to activists’ strategy ... a critical repositioning in parts of the UK climate movement, recognising climate breakdown is not a future issue, but a devastating present reality ... world leaders and corporations were “youth-washing” by co-opting child climate activists  -  inviting them on to platforms and into private meetings to burnish their own images; but their demands - from urging for financing for loss and damage, an end to the racist Home Office or an end to capitalism itself  -  were not heard ...

(An end to capitalism itself?  Surely not!)  Finally, avoiding the obvious possibility that it was all a fad, the piece concludes by clutching at straws: 

It’s a good thing that young activists are now viewed less as angelic saviours, and more as political actors in their own right.

So that's alright.  It also cites an earlier piece of detailed navel-gazing by the earnest folk at Novara media - who naturally offer a convoluted leftie analysis; but at least they also have the intelligence and self-awareness to recognise that the sheer nastiness of 'progressive' politics had a role to play in causing the whole thing to fizzle out.

*  *  *  *  *  *

Longtime C@W readers will know my 30,000-ft view on this.  In the real world, Peak Greta might be thought to have happened in mid 2019 when for example the desperate Theresa May strikingly committed the UK to 'Net Zero by 2050', way ahead of the pack, causing some people to credit Greta with this result.  But actually, the tectonic plates really shifted at the end of 2018 (when Greta hadn't yet got much further than her truant picket line in Sweden), when a key UN committee backed 'adaptation' and 'resilience' to climate change as being officially Green.   At this point, every traditional steel-n-concrete industry on the planet realised that instead of non-stop opprobrium and decline, there could be plentiful government-underwritten contracts in this for them, too!  The banks weren't slow to draw the same conclusion and Bingo!  Net zero carbon quickly became the only game in town.  Nothing to do with Greta, except that the timing looked like she might have had something to do with it.  But correlation doesn't mean causation, eh?

And now Putin has de-railed much of this, at least for the time being.  Hell, lignite-burning is coming back into fashion!   And the armaments industries. 

None of it looks like a youth movement now.  Where will all that enthusiasm and energy find an outlet?   I guess we will have to wait and find out.  Can't see them all joining the Young Conservatives though, Boris.

ND

French Ukraine "intelligence" fiasco: poor stuff, frogs

It's worth a small laugh over this cold weekend, but you have also to feel sorry for General Eric Vidaud, head of French military "intelligence", who has been required to fall on his sword over Ukraine-related failings: 

France‘s military intelligence chief is leaving his post after Paris failed to accurately predict – in contrast with western allies – that Russia would launch a full-scale invasion of Ukraine ... France’s assessments had contrasted with the gloomy predictions by allies including the US and Britain who said a serious military assault was imminent. Senior figures from Emmanuel Macron’s government insisted there was no suggestion of a full-scale invasion and the French president kept diplomacy going to the last minute ... Le Monde said the war in Ukraine had exposed the differences between the intelligence services of France and those of the UK and the US ...  “Even if this reliance on Anglo-Saxon intelligence has existed for a long time, particularly in the fight against terrorism and in space, the war in Ukraine has shed light on it in a crude way”

Note "reliance".  Yup, that's what it is, much to the chagrin of France (and Germany and the rest).  Likewise France's dependence on the UK and USA for critical support that underpins its military operations in central Africa.  What a crap player Theresa May was, with cards like that in her hand.

ND

Energy Crisis: Nobody Seems To Care - Yet

The only time the global energy crisis was front and centre in the UK's dozy media was when there was also a completely coincidental "shortage" (i.e. mass hysteria) at the petrol pumps.  That resolved itself, as it was bound to do: at which point everyone stopped gawping at the levels of international wholesale prices of gas and electricity.

This negligence is of course encouraged by Theresa May's domestic energy price cap, under which most of us will be sheltering as our fixed-price deals roll off, and we can't find anything cheaper.  But of course this time-bomb is set to explode in April.

European wholesale 1-year power price for Calendar 2022

Just feast your eyes on this chart; and imagine what's going to happen when this works through to ordinary punters.  I reckon it will be a serious factor in Boris' decision-making on his political future.  Whoever's holding this baby when it goes off will be well-and-truly covered in ordure.   (To mix idioms freely.)

So: when will it get the attention it deserves?

ND 

Theresa May, An Authoritative Voice (ahem) ...

Theresa May has lambasted Boris Johnson in Parliament for his choice of National Security Adviser.  He really ought to listen to her on this one ...

(Apologies to Bugsy Malone & the rest of gang) 

My name is Theresa 
Prime Minister once; 
Until hounded out by 
A right bunch of chumps! 
I have a simply stellar reputation behind me 
So if you need my wisdom 
In the Commons you’ll find me 

My name is Theresa
No failure am I - 
The Eurocrats loved me! 
(I never knew why) 
I know an awful lot about appointing advisers 
They must be liked in Brussels, 
And be good compromisers 

Lonely, a PM can be lonely 
Come and hear Theresa 
She can put you straight when you stray 
If you’re lonely, you don't have to be lonely 
When they talk about Theresa 
You know what they say … 
They praise me in the Lords, they praise me in the Commons 
“Theresa had her training from the great Olly Robbins!” 

My name is Theresa 
And soon I’ll be gone 
A trashed reputation’s 
The road I’ll travel on 
“Brexit means Brexit” - now the words upset me 
You may be glad I’m gone 
But don’t say you’ll forget me … 

Lonely ...

 ND

Energy in the Future

Regular readers will know I identify 2019 as the year everything changed.  Up until then (in my estimation), most people's attitude to climate change was, yeah, s'pose, maybe; so what?  During 2019 most people switched to yeah, of course - flooding, forest fires:  presumably someone will be doing something about it.   And indeed Theresa May (Theresa May!) did.   On the XR-Greta bounce, she passed the Net Zero 2050 legislation, hastily followed by, errr, pretty much every other western government you can name.

What this jolly damascene narrative misses is two gigantic Real World developments offstage.  The first, and biggest, is that all of a sudden, spending on Adaptation & Mitigation - getting ahead of those floods and fires! - was admitted to the ranks of what counts as Green.  This means that every clunking old heavy-industry company feels it stands a chance of joining in the upcoming feeding frenzy (steel-and-concrete, yay! - not just those poncey, ex-hippy solar farm wallahs); and of course every bank.  That's huge.

The second is that Big Private Energy (if not the NOCs and their like) decided in 2019 that they'd better join the party, too - properly, not just a nibble around the edges of the lettuce-leaf for greewashing purposes as theretofore.  Shell is only the latest.  And why not?  It all plays to their strengths, innit?  -  R&D; Big Engineering; massive capex; expert project management; dealing with governments etc etc etc.  (They are wrong about their strengths in some detailed regards, but let that pass - they'll find out in due course.  And the better ones will quickly learn.)

_   _   _   _   _   _

Let's give one really big, and really important example: the natural gas industry.  It's Big.  And the capital it has sunk (your pension fund has sunk) in steel-&-concrete, & real-estate, & highly-trained people etc etc) is very, very large.  Much of it is rather static, too: gas production facilities, mammoth intercontinental pipelines, processing facilities, liquefaction plant, LNG fleets, re-gas facilities, myriad small distribution pipelines ...  and nobody fancies writing that lot off.
 
Up until 2019, they kinda felt they didn't need to contemplate this awful prospect because they felt they'd been given a multi-decade pass.  Hey - the greatest reductions ever made in CO2 emissions come when gas replaces coal!  We're the good guys!  Watch us repeat the UK trick and the USA trick in, errr, China and India ...

Then they notice that in the west, coal has already given up the ghost (except in Germany) and all eyes are on them as the next big fossil fuel villains:  AND not just the know-nothing swampy-greens, but the steely-eyed, utterly ruthless ex-hippies taking all the government money for wind and solar, who've got the gas sector lined up to be supplanted by ELECTRIFICATION.  And all that gas capital tied up in steel-&-concrete!

Suddenly (and truly, it was abrupt) the entire industry has lighted upon conversion from natgas to hydrogen.  Why?  Because -

(a)  actually the threat of wholesale electrification isn't imminent: in most countries you just can't switch that amout of space heating from gas to electricity without colossal expenditure (like, in the UK for example, trebling the capacity of the Grid  - which is what you'd need) - so, they get a breather if not a free pass, provided they are seen to be With the Program, and knuckling down (which they are):
(b) they get to utilise a lot of those existing assets that represent so much of their balance sheets (phew!):
(c) it's squarely in their sweet spot:  fairly conventional and established technology, pretty basic chemical- and civil-engineering, lots of scope for improvements and efficiencies on existing processes - the kinds of things they can easily find / redeploy staffing and raise money for:
(d) it solves a massive problem for governments (relying on electrification of space heating, trucking and large-scale gas-burning industry wasn't going to get them far towards Net Zero, as they know):
(e) it potentially also solves a problem for the green electricity wallahs, too.  Solar and wind (and in fact nuclear, too) generates when electricity isn't wanted, which is easily managed when they only represent a small amount of the total, but is getting to be a serious issue.  They can see themselves turning their excess production into hydrogen, via electrolysis:
(f) even the Russians might be able to play: they can turn their methane into hydrogen (via steam reforming) and sell that to us instead of natgas (even if they need to, errr, think about all the left-over CO2 ...)
(g)  SUNK COSTS(!) - as we keep saying on C@W.

Here's not the place to sketch out the many significant practical (and political) issues a hydrogen-based energy system will face along the way.  All I'd say is:  there's a combination here of massive incentive and feasible technology.  In my experience, that's a recipe for things getting done.  Many's the time I've seen first hand, just how far people will go to avoid writing an asset off completely.

And I'd contrast hydrogen strongly with two other supposed "energy-technologies of the future":  (i) small nukes of various types; and  (ii) carbon capture & storage (CCS, or these days CCUS), both of which have been identified as 100% necessary for decarbonisation, and only just-around-the-corner as regards technology and commercial feasibility**.  As they have been for, errr, decades ...  in which case, W(here)TF are they?   Nope, small nukes and CCS don't pass my personal reality-check;  writing not as an engineer but as a commercial type and longtime observer of what's actually happening, and what's BS.

Whereas hydrogen looks the part, in every dimension so far as I can see.  Anone who's skeptical about any of this just needs to check out what's going on.  In the Real World.  Real companies, spending real cash (money of their own, at the moment) and real effort.  Solving real problems along the way.  Don't bet against it.

ND 

______________
**Addendum:  not to say there aren't stirrings in both these camps.  And in principle, Big Oil & Gas ought to love the idea of CCS, on some of the same a priori grounds that make hydrogen attractive for them.  But, among several other contrary indicators, Germany shows no interest whatever in CCS, an significant disadvantage when compared with their enthusiasm for H. 

Nuclear ain't free, either: EDF in Big Trouble

One of our recent visitors queried my offhand comment that EDF was in Big Trouble (BTL on the "Negative Prices" piece).

Easy:  EDF is essentially a price-taker, but its costs are by no means all sunk - see CU's piece on oil price and comments thereupon.  OK, EDF has some short-term hedges in place (forward sales at fixed prices, in their case) but the very large bulk of its very long future outlook is naked exposure to the market price of power, which ain't gonna be healthy.  (EDF's outlook has to be long - the longest of any European energy producer - because it amortises its stuff over many decades at a very low discount rate.  Only holders of pure, essential infrastructure like National Grid could contemplate longer outlooks and lower discounts.)

The traditional model of most power generators in competitive markets is built not on absolute prices (naked exposure), but spreads - the differences between e.g. electricity and coal prices ("dark spread") or electricity and gas ("spark spread").  They are margin businesses: buy fuel, sell electricity - when profitable.  (Large-scale hydro power is much more complex, economically, but need not detain us here.)  Market prices will be set by something approximating the marginal plant on the system at a given point in time.

Then along come wind and solar, with their sunk costs and near-Zero short-run marginal cost - no fuel!  They would be price-takers, too, were it not for the massive subsidies they traditionally received.  Increasingly, however, they do trash the market price for everyone else (see "negative prices" as before) - that's zero-marginal-cost-plus-sunk-capital-cost for you.  

Here's the thing.  For some purposes - specifically, political and PR purposes - nukes have enjoyed billing themselves as having "zero marginal cost", too.  "Electricity too cheap to meter" in the words of the old slogan.  But it's bollocks.  They have monstrous ongoing costs to cover, of which the cost of fuel is broadly irrelevant.  It's maintenance, safety, plant life-extension and, crucially, decommissioning that loom large in their low-discount future perspectives.  And for EDF these things are (a) vast, and - the most important point - (b) not even remotely fully funded.  If they were fully funded they could be viewed as sunk.  But they ain't - not even close.

So ultra-low electricity prices are catastrophic for EDF and, in turn, for the French state.  Yes folks, EDF is Too Big To Fail. The French are obliged to essay the biggest can-kicking exercise in Europe.  Longtime readers of this blog will know that shortly after we started up I opined (in 2007) that French policy was all about getting other people (the EU, the UK ...) to pay for EDF's astronomic decommissioning bill.  Everything that's happened since has reinforced the point. 

That very much includes the suicidal madness that is Hinkley Point C, one of the primary reasons Osborne, and May in her turn, deserve eternal opprobrium.  The scale of UK subvention that we've committed to over 35 years, to buy the output of this plant at truly ludicrous prices will put a serious dent in our economy.  Ultimately, May is excused through weakness of intellect and will. 

But Osborne?  Osborne seemed to believe in an ever increasing electricity market price (the only conceivable rationale for HPC).  He is a cretin, and how he managed to come by a reputation for political genius is one of those enduring mysteries.

What's to be done?  Well for one thing, don't let's repeat the entire disaster by paying EDF to build Sizewell C! (which was firmly in the pre-covid political calendar, hopefully now on ice).  And for HPC?  We mave have to resort to the Semtex option ...

ND

Centrica's Woes and What They Betoken

From time to time we pass comment on Centrica - partly because energy is one of our themes; and partly because from inception as an Enron-wannabe spin-off out of the old monopoly British Gas, it's been an interesting company on an interesting 'journey' (as we're obliged to say these days).  

You can click on the link below to see our sporadic past comments.  Not all of them have been favourable, because Centrica went through a misguided phase of loud special-pleading for subsidies, which didn't endear them to us - or indeed to the government.  They've taken a few outright false steps over the years, notable among which were the move into "we-can-do-everything" banking & telecomms; and the big stake they took in British Energy nukes alongside EDF.  But they've done clever stuff too: intelligent re-calibration of commercial policy when things weren't working out as intended (these days we must call this 'pivoting'); and a series of adroit asset acquisitions (most notably gas-fired power stations and long-term electricity supply contracts) when prices were rock-bottom.  Their technical skills in the marketplace have always been pretty fair.

All in all, to have stayed independent for nearly 25 years is no mean achievement.

But today they have serious problems to address.  Mrs May's inane price cap has weakened the entire industry, as was widely foreseen; and for a couple of years now insider commentary has not been kind about Centrica's strategic decsion-making, once so laudable.  Share price has reflected these things. They are 're-basing the dividend' and the top man is quitting. 

There doesn't need to be any sentiment in this: but I feel uneasy when good companies can't find a way through.  The residential gas & electricity supply business is of course going through a shocking phase.  May's cap; the plethora of minnows that should never have been given licences (Ofgem's grievous fault) and have been going under at a rate; big players like RWE (Innogy/NPower) and SSE trying to exit ... this is a mess.  And against a backdrop for the entire energy sector of trying to get to grips with whatever the 'decarbonised' future will bring.

Civilisation is energy-intensive, as the great James Lovelock reminds us (he's just turned 100) - and society needs capable energy companies.  In civilised countries, energy should be like water and food: so well managed that the miracle of abundance goes almost unnoticed.  Darwinian processes are fine: but there's no pleasure in seeing a big healthy beast fall sick.  Yes; things can go very wrong if the energy market isn't working well.

ND  

May finally leaves number 10. Two years after she should have.

This - From Bill Quango
27/6/2017

I'm usually last man standing, backing our people.

I was the one saying 'Sven-Göran Eriksson was the best England manager we have had for years.' He lost only 5 competitive games.
 His popularity had declined when England inexplicably failed to win the world cup in 2002.
 But not for me. I still backed him. 

With Dave Cameron, I was happy. Long after it became apparent he wasn't going to win us the world cup either, I was personally still suggesting he was better than whoever else was available.   He may have had only an extra time win against the Brown Team
And only a 1-0 against the Miliband, but it was still better than expected. 
And the performances overall were solid enough.
 When Cameron went, he went with 'good riddance' from the many ringing in his ears.

 With May, 10 months after her rise to the top, I already think she should be gone as soon as it is practically possible. 

No replacement could do as badly as she has done. She hasn't got the benefit of the doubt.
 
Neither Johnson nor Gove would have lost a majority. Not Davis. Not even the, for some unfathomable reason, hotly tipped Rudd. 
 Not Hammond and not even lightweight Leadsom would have lost the majority. Not even 'Chancer' Fox.

 A party split. A team line-up that baffled everyone. Star players left on the bench. No understanding of the opponents strengths and weaknesses. No tactical sense of how to beat the opposition. 
No plan B, when plan A started to go wrong. Just a hope that somehow  she would win.

And a very worrying feeling, that though the Corbyn Team might be weak and inferior opposition,  they have turned up to win. And we hadn't.

I stand by it all.

A disaster that should have been told to clear off the moment she lost her majority. Saved by panic in the party and the fear of a civil war. The Tory party MP's fear of Johnson, has only given them Johnson, with a very, very unstable govrnment.

The lesson was learned long ago in the Tory Party. 

There is no excuse for failure.

http://www.cityunslicker.co.uk/2017/06/tresemme-professional-and-affordable.html

She's Leaving Home

With apologies to Paul McCartney ...

[four bars of plaintive harp music]

Wednesday morning at twelve o’clock, PMQs begin 
Goes through the motions, feels weak at the knees 
Then to the Palace to hand in her keys … 
She goes downstairs to the limo, clutching her handkerchief 
Dabbing her eyes like old Thatcher’s ghost 
Stepping outside, she is toast 

   She (I gave it most of my life) 
   Is leaving (sacrificed most of my life) 
   Town (I tried so hard to look smart all the time) 
   She’s leaving town after dicking around for so many years 

Boris snorts as he wanders round in his dressing gown 
Picks up the letter the courier brought 
Standing in triumph; another great snort 
He laughs loud, and cries to his mistress 
“Carrie, Phil Hammond’s gone! 
Why did he stymie May’s No-Deal plan? 
What can be done with the man?” 

   She (I had no thoughts of my own) 
   Is leaving (never a thought of my own) 
   Town (I struggled hard to learn all of my lines) 
   She’s leaving town after dicking around for so many years 

Friday morning at nine o’clock she is history 
Hawking some diaries excusing her crimes 
Meeting a man from the Sunday Times 

   She (what did I do that was wrong?) 
   Is hist’ry (I didn’t know it was wrong) 
   Now (nothing achieved to remember me by!) 
   Somehow her stuff, it was never enough in so many ways 
   She’s hist’ry now (bye bye) 

ND

Singing & Dancing in Downing Street

Yes, it's that time of the political cycle. Bring on the dancing girls! With apologies to Warren & Dublin & 42nd Street 

     In the heart of old Westminster, you’ll find a Georgian mall 
     It’s the part of old Westminster that runs into Whitehall 
     A crazy pad that’s full of spads; if you’ve got a little time to spare, 
     I want to take you there ... 

See them tweet, “May’s in retreat!” 
Down the avenue I’m taking you to - 
Quitting Downing Street 

In defeat, she’s luncheon meat 
It’s the old No Deal that’s making ‘em squeal! 
In old Downing Street 

      Hunts and BoJos, and whips and journos, trading in deceit 
    DUP-ers and ERG-ers, plotting trick-or-treat 

Fratricide!   Undignified! 
Yes, the mad and bad are now the elite 
Circling Downing Street 

See her tears, it’s kinda sweet 
It’s a cul de sac, you gotta turn back 
That's old Downing Street!

ND

Weekend Open Thread: Theresa May in History

So: counting down in hours now.  Mrs May is currently pouring out the initiatives & money etc at such a rate, it's hard to be definitive on what her legacy may be.  But it's always fun to take a stab at the First Draft of History.

How will May be remembered 50 years hence?  

Answers BTL, please.  If anyone can come up with a non-facetious positive, I'll be interested to read it.  Offhand, I can think of only one.

We'll check back in 2069 and award prizes then.  'Cause I'm quite sure the NHS will keep me alive that long ...

ND

Nuclear Finance: Stuffed by the French Again

Later this week, we're told, the long-trailed announcement will be made of a new approach to financing nuclear power plants in the UK.

As we've long been warmed up to accept, no company is willing to take upon itself nuclear construction risk.  That was just about all that remained in the lap of developers, after EDF had blazed the trail with the outrageous Hinkley Point C contract that May so cravenly signed back in 2016 under stern instruction of the miserable tadpole Hollande (thereby proving to the entire watching world she was unfit to conduct the Brexit process).  But EDF itself quickly signalled that if we wanted any more nukes the next deal would need to be even better.

(Note always that HPC is a not-quite-free option for EDF - they still have no obligation to complete construction of the plant.  It can be argued they have no idea how to do it anyway, seeing that Flammanville has been put back yet another few years ...)

Still, the frogs are dangling the next one, Sizewell C, before the desperate eyes of HMG - and of course the Chinese and Japs and Koreans can all make their own offerings - if the contract is rich enough, and free of risk for themselves.

The chosen financing model to gratify their rapacity is the Regulated Asset Base model.  Details are awaited; but it's a familar enough tool, used across the USA in various forms for decades, and latterly for that grotesque and unnecessary project, the Thames Tideway.  But familarity alone is no recommendation.

The lazy headlines are that the 'taxpayer' stands to pick up the tab for the inevitable monstrous cost overruns.  Maybe; but it's even more likely it will be the poor old electricity bill-payer, which may seem a fine distinction but it highlights an important point.  Everyone needs electricity (and water) and their utility value to all of us is so great, we can be made to pay almost anything for them.  No new taxes required.  By these means we can be, have been, and will again be screwed into the ground, giving foreign firms the right to enjoy themselves on a grand scale at our expense for many decades to come.

The only possible argument in favour is that nukes have only ever been built by public finance, so we may as well don the nose-pegs and get on with it.  That assumes we need them at all - and I say we don't.  Or, if we do, we're f****d, because manifestly the French don't know how to build them within, say, 10 years of their airy estimates - so we'll always need large-scale Plans B, C and D.  Why not just settle for a good, cost-effective Plan B and have done?

Anyhow, knowing that several of our BTL regulars actually favour new nukes - have at it in the comments!

ND

Charisma vs Strategy: the Tory Leadership Choice

While the Tory Party agonises over which 'unt is to lead us to glory, time for some weekend musing over the rather extreme choice the two candidates present us with - almost a caricature of the dichotomies of colourful vs grey, big-picture vs detail etc etc.  I haven't read anything particularly interesting on this in the MSM; certainly not this very feeble offering from the Graun on leadership vs management.

In times that call for genuinely serious political leadership - analogies with war don't seem to me in any way overblown - one has been hoping upon hope that the hour will indeed bringeth forward the man.  The twin tasks before the next PM - to prevail against the EU, and in the next GE (though not necessarily in that order) - represent two enormously challenging theatres of political warfare that canot be avoided.  Admittedly, success in whichever epic battle comes first could materially enhance the prospects for the second ... but that didn't help Harold Godwinson, did it?  And the consequences of his ultimate failure weren't just long-lasting, they were kinda fundamental.     

Bringeth forth the man ...  Neither of the two hopefuls is a Churchill, despite Johnson's risible attempts to associate himself with that more propitious piece of our history (much like Gordon Brown writing his 'eight portraits' on Courage. Would he have included Aung San Suu Kyi today, hmmm?)  I struggle to find an encouraging historical parallel of a Boris-type taking the reins in such dire circumstances and plucking triumph from the jaws of defeat - though I could imagine there's an obscure Roman emperor who might fit the bill.  We have of course had some personally ineffectual kings down the years, but the successes under their reigns have been down to powerful players at the next level down - and where do we identify those today?

So here's a short piece I can recommend, on how to understand charisma - which is just about the only potentially positive commodity which Boris clearly offers in spades.  Whether reading that makes you any the more hopeful, I don't know. 

By way of balance, is there anything of substance worth saying about Hunt?  Actually, I think there is.  You have seen me before, tearing my hair over May's complete lack of anything resembling a strategy, in the face of people (Selmayr, Robbins) who clearly knew exactly what they were doing.  But here's Hunt who has actually published something on Brexit that is recognisably strategic.  If you haven't seen his 10-Point Plan before, take a read.

I'm not suggesting this is a work of genius.   And you can argue it's a pretty rum state of affairs when these things need to be published.  But secrecy over strategy isn't necessarily required in all circumstances: in some conflicts, one or other side's strategy (or both) may be so obvious to all parties - indeed, they may flaunt it - that secrecy is out of the question: but that may not weaken them materially.  And whoever produced this document for Hunt can also, presumably, be pressed into service by Johnson - and be invited to contribute to the GE strategy, whenever that's needed.

Your weekend thoughts on the Johnson/Hunt choice?

ND

Peak Corbyn

As you perhaps know I am an inveterate, nay veteran strategiser: I have done it for a living in the military and in commerce.  In the aftermath of the dreadful GE 2017, my thoughts inevitably turned to how the Tories might work their way out of the ridiculous hole May had dropped them in.  (Obviously someone had been given an inkling of the result beforehand, because at least the DUP deal was immediately ready to roll.)

Sticking to aspects that are germane to the matter in hand right now, my strategy incorporated the following elements that had positive leverage potential:

1. The next (scheduled) GE would be five years ahead, a helluva long time
2. Corbyn was 68; McDonnell 66
3. In the ensuing years there were likely to be a number of truly loonie-left Local Authorities to provide public evidence of what these latter-day marxists do, given a sniff of power - 5 years being a mighty long time for them to hold their discipline
4. Da Yoof, whilst capable of surging onto the streets and into the polling booths in a fit of childrens-crusade enthusiasm, are nowadays notoriously fickle, flighty, of short attention-span, and low propensity to make commitments beyond the next Deliveroo pizza horizon  

Anyhow, their attention-span lasted long enough to grant Magic Grandad a full Triumph at Glastonbury 2017; and Momentum, buoyed up with all the confidence May had so culpably endowed them with (see recent posts), was gearing up to take over the world.

Then the long drawn-out Brexit stuff engulfed them, and Corbyn's resolute fence-sitting - almost indistinguishable from being fully impaled on a sharp bit at the top - has begun to annoy quite a number on the Left.  The tone of many a leftie article just now is:  too late, you old git, we've got your number now, and if you change your mind this late in the day, nobody will believe you.  Anyhow - remind me why we ever liked you in the first place?  And where's that pizza?  

Oh, how fickle is fortune, eh? (see item 4 above).   And then we come to item 2, and this week's "Corbyn has lost it" meme, so rapidly fanning out from the Murdoch press.  As with all good malicious rumours, per the Trump handbook (see Scott Adams passim) the key is to say something that immediately chimes, that was almost on everyone's lips anyway, that crystalises the already-present but non-articulated thought.  And, let's face it, this one falls on pretty fertile ground.  The timing was perfect.

Of course, Team Corbs (I believe they go by 'LOTO') have rushed into full Rapid Rebuttal mode - but this one would have been a challenge for Bad Al Campbell** lui-même in his formidable Excalibur prime.  Unfortunately, the best they can come up with is, Jezza is really quite fit.  For his age.  Ahem.  Sadly, as lots of people know all too poignantly, there is many a deep-dementia sufferer who is as fit as a fiddle ...  and that's even before we get into "Methinks / protest ..."  Just how smart is it to call for a full enquiry?  Who knows what else will come up?

People have periodically been calling 'Peak Corbyn' for at least 18 months, but thus far I haven't been convinced.  Today, there's a decent case to be made.  He seems to have a tight pretorian team that can face down even McDonnell, so they can probably keep him, El Cid-like, stuck on his fence for a good while longer.  (People did the same for Gordon Brown, as we frequently noted at the time.)  Trouble is, there may no longer be the adoring crowds gazing up at him from either side.  No Glastonbury for Corbs this year (according the Grauniad, he'd have been booed if he'd tried).  Could be quite a lonely place when the wind gets up.  Clambering down again may be painful in itself, and too late anyway.  Talk is already of handing the baton to Rebecca Long Bailey.

By the way, I hear McDonnell's health is not of the best ...

ND
____________________________
**Did he even start the rumour ..?

UPDATE:  this,  from today's Guardian

Rumours have been flying for months not only about Corbyn’s physical health ... but more broadly about his intellectual capacity; his ability to master an endless series of complex briefs and take timely decisions on difficult issues, while simultaneously managing a sometimes fractious party and dealing with whatever unexpected crisis blows up.

 AND MORE:   (also Graun)

Corbynism’s greatest liability is now Jeremy Corbyn himself ... He sounds tongue-tied and looks like a man hiding from battle, which undermines the image of a candid crusader. When the hero no longer embodies principles on which his movement was founded, the whole edifice wobbles. The attention of young idealists drifts; affection turns conditional; benefit of the doubt is withdrawn. It is getting notably harder, for example, to be loyal to Corbyn and determined to combat antisemitism at the same time ... He once exuded a gentleness that made allegations of fanaticism sound preposterous. Now his peevish side cuts through. He once animated feelings of belonging and purpose in people who had felt starved of inspiration by soulless New Labour. Now he refuses to quench the thirst of his party’s parched remainers ... Few Labour MPs, if any, relish the prospect of an election under their leader, although most pretend to want one. It is hard to present Corbyn as a man for the future, and May’s departure will date him even more. He will be a stale continuity figure from the time of stasis, irradiated through years of loitering ineffectually amid the referendum’s toxic fallout. His aura of specialness has dissipated, revealing the man in all his flawed mediocrity. The prospect of Britain having a radical Labour government is sliding into the gap that has opened up between an idea people once called “Jeremy Corbyn” and the actual Jeremy Corbyn.

May's Legacy: As We Were saying

As you may recall, I consider the worst feature of May's baleful legacy to be that by failing to crush the morale of the bedsit left in the 2017 GE, she has encouraged every leftist idiot out of their decade-long despondency to give vent to their wildest fanatsies - which they have every intention of having Corbyn enact.  And in the bidding war before the next GE, who knows what he'll promise?

Exhibit A: - and I'm going Daily Mail on you now - here's the operative part of a motion passed on Monday at the AGM of the British Medical Association.

This meeting calls for the policy of charging migrants for NHS care to be abandoned and for the NHS to be free for all at the point of delivery

And they do mean 'all'.

See what I mean?

And the thing is, stuff like that can actually be delivered.  It's the complex financial stuff they'd find they can't do.  And then they'd turn to the gesture politics.  It's cheap (in the short run), it's stroke-of-a-pen stuff.  And they'd really enjoy doing it.

ND

Zero-Carbon: May Screws Up her 'Legacy'

[Foreword - to those C@W readers who have apoplexy at the suggestion CO2 emissions contribute to climate change: the rights and wrongs of that issue have no bearing on what follows.]

The story so far:  a latter-day Childrens Crusade fronted by a cynically manipulated little Swedish girl, coupled with large-scale childish behaviour on the streets of London from grown adults who ought to know better, has made some raucous political music with demands for completely infeasible actions against UK CO2 emissions - specifically, zero CO2 by 2025.  Among several organisations to seize this opportunity, the Commitee on Climate Change (headed by the conflicted and disreputable "Lord Deben") rushed out its proposal for 'Net Zero Carbon by 2050'. 

These recommendations, properly viewed (i.e. politically viewed) were an absolute Godsend for the beleagured Tory government.

1. Deben immediately defused the 2025 nonsense.  He is the man fronting an enormous report that had loads of pretty respectable input++ from business, industry, real scientists etc; and they all agree 2050 itself is quite stretch.  Deben was actually asked about 2025 on the telly, and he was contemptuously dismissive.  
2. Consistent with 1 above, net-zero-2050 is notably more demanding (in the form the CCC wrote it) than any other nation has committed thus far.  Plenty of rich political capital can be coined from this.
3. Nonetheless, 2050 is, well, rather a long way into the future ... a pretty decent entry into the Can-Kicking Championships
4. Although the Labour Party greatly hoped to be steering the limelight towards itself, the best it could do in response was to replace "by 2050" with "before 2050".  (This is because some of them are seriously bidding for Actual Power, and fondly expect to be the ones to implement it.  And they, too, reckon 2050 is a stretch.)   

All in all, a gift for the distraction-seeking and legacy-craving Theresa May.  Quietly neutralise the jolly annoying Extinction Rebellion, as desired by ordinary people everywhere; and impress the young people by Doing Something Amazing for the planet.

There would have been so many ways to big this up and wow da yoof.  Top of the list would have been to say that the Deben proposals were not ambitious enough, and she was going to do something even more impressive: it wouldn't have been hard to come up with something.  (For 2050, you can say whatever you fancy - everyone else does.)  Nobody's going to vote against it in Parliament, are they?

But no.

Rather grumpily and with stupid caveats** that can be, and immediately are, used to damn her, she says "oh well, alright then".  Why insert a 5-year review?  Parliament can always review and change any legislation it fancies.  And anyway, 5-years-hence is Not Her Problem!  Why allow the buying of carbon credits to count towards the total?  This is so easily portrayed as a nasty little weasel (which indeed it is - international carbon credits are as bent as a nine-bob note); and again, 2050 is a long, long way off!  Details not required!

As every wise parent knows, when the kids have been kicking up for Disney and you've decided to take them, you don't say:  oh alright, bloody Disney it is, but you're not going on Space Mountain, there will be no ice cream, and at half-term I'm going to ask your teachers if you've been working hard, 'cos if you haven't I'm cancelling the tickets. 

Oh dear.  She ain't gonna enjoy her retirement.

ND

____________________
++ We can discuss this another time
** This is said to be Hammond's doing - like so much of what has been baleful over the last three years.  His long-faced 'trillion pounds' objection is just rubbish.  Presumably, like an extensive line of men before him - Osborne, Hollande, Selmayr, Robbins ... the list goes on - he sat her down and told her sternly what she had to do.      

May's Legacy is Worse Than Brexit Failure

“There is a great deal of ruin in a nation"   (Adam Smith)

We are not yet holed below the water line; but a lot of the rigging has been shot away, and ammunition expended.  Captain May had no idea how to fight the ship (who does?) but lost important early actions, and has steered us incompetently into dangerous waters.  Mutiny threatens.  The sharks are circling; and the depths below us are unplumbed.  Brexit?  That's just for starters.

How much of our present plight can fairly be laid at May's door?  It is not clear to me which plausible alternative Tory PM would for certain have commenced a purposeful Brexit camapign in 2016, knowing (as we now do) that the Civil Service is not up to, nor up for, the tasks that necessarily come their way in this regard.  Which of Gove, Johnson, or Leadsom (I discard Crabb, Davis and Fox) would have taken the necessary steps in the necessary timeframe - setting proper expectations; immediately hiring the best negotiators and lawyers the City has to offer; making Civil Service obstruction a pension-forfeiting offence; moving onto a 'war' footing on every front - to give the enterprise its best chance of success?

But there are two monstrous mis-steps that are May's and May's alone.  The first is symbolic, the second diabolic.

One of her first acts as PM was to call in the Hinkley Point C decision.  As was right and proper: this was always an Osborne project and the panicky French realised it was at risk.  After years of prevaricating (and still to this day with no final design for the business end of the reactors!) they rushed to sign the draft agreements at a speed which betrayed their utter desperation.  Ho ho.

So what happened next?  Did May parlay this into Brexit-enabling commitments by the Frog?  Did she hold Hinkley hostage against a successful Brexit outcome?  Nope: Hollande told her sternly to sign without further ado and, meekly, she did.  A clear omen of the awful things to come, as we confidently predicted at the time.  This was a May classic, signalling to the whole of the 27 that she was there for the taking.  And I really don't imagine any other PM would have enacted this craven calamity.

The second, though, could have much longer-lasting consequences.  This was the 2017 GE - not the calling of it per se (for which there was a fair rationale), but her disastrous, hubristic personal conduct of it**.

Because Corbyn was there for the slaughter.  Had the campaign been just one week shorter she would have returned with a majority.  Had it not included several wholly avoidable faux pas, that majority could have been pretty decent.   This might have been helpful in the Brexit context, or not (given that Dominic Grieve would still have been one of those MPs) - but that's not the point.

The point is that Corbyn would have been defenestrated.

At Labour HQ, the coup was ready, the locks had been changed, and the marxists would have been sent back to their rightful obscurity to rant at each other in dingy halls.  By giving Corbyn a new lease of life, May has given every 'woke' bedsit dweller of whatever age to understand that there is an alternative to rolling back under their sordid duvets in apathetic political lassitude.   We weren't crushed at the election.  Hell, if we all glue ourselves to a bridge, we can change the world!   And so every idiot malcontent is now crawling out of bed, possessed of the idea they can realise their fondest fantasies.

For ordinary folk wishing simply for the world to be competently run, it is really quite important that fantasists with too much time on their hands confine their crapulous activities to passing motions in the students union.  As will always be the case in a benign democracy, if they all turn up at once there are too may of them to be restrained by reasonably peaceful means.  For many a long decade, they haven't chosen to force the point (at least, not in this country), thus enabling honest people to get on with their lives.

I greatly fear that their tails are well and truly up now, and that they will be increasingly strident - and gratified - in their demands.  Not, of course, that most of what they want can actually be delivered (although some of the nastiest gesture-politics can be), but that craven politicians pander to them as though it can (witness "legally binding" targets for CO2 emissions, which is only the start).  Such nonsense and waste of resources can go on for years before the gig's up, as it always will be eventually.

And of course in the ranks of the politicos are not only the craven, but the unscrupulous: slavering at the prospects of enlisting these idiots as a battering-ram for their *Revolution*.  If Tusk is right about there being a special place in Hell for those who pretended Brexit would be easy, there's an even hotter spot for those who would direct a Children's Crusade.

A better result in GE 2017 could have sent the innocents home sadder and wiser.  By screwing up, May has put wind in their sails.  Will habitual idleness, short attention-span or frustration with Corbyn's fence-sitting be enough to send them back to their games consoles?  Perhaps.  But maybe not.

"The impatience, bordering into contempt, for the political class and the amount of hostility and borderline violence is something we have not known for a very very long time."  (Damian Green, this morning)

ND 

** and we never wish to hear again from Nick Timothy, either