The French farce of 'one in, one out'

As our friend Mr Hēméra kindly pointed out BTL yesterday, my vision of a single small-boater being recycled endlessly between France & Dover & back to gain credits for the Frogs under 'one in, one out', may have come true almost immediately.  The Beeb led with the story yesterday, although the Graun kept it off their front www page altogether: we can imagine which approach goes down better with ministers ...  And the Beeb also announced that Mr Frog is no longer reckoning to puncture or otherwise intercept the boats in shallow water ... citing 'Elf-n-Safety!  (Have you ever seen a wheelchair user trying to access the Metro?  They have absolutely no concept of E-n-S there.)

All very entertaining.  And the supplementary questions are so easy to generate, it's almost embarrassing to do so.  But here goes, for starters.  

1. OK, chapter and verse, please, on how exactly the 'one in ...' points system works in such cases ...
2. ... and was it meant to be, errr, a deterrent?
3. Does this enterprising chap get another round of free legal aid in order to plead his case all over again?  With added sobbing and explanations of how France is unsafe for human habitation?
4. Where did he get the money for a second voyage?   (maybe the Louvre heist ..?)
5. How come the meejah all have interviews with him??  
6. Have the handful of (volunteer) Rwanda deportees also come back?

Just askin' ...

ND

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PS: thinking again about 4 & 5 above: along with two packets of 'Duchy Original' oat biscuits, did his "HMG farewell goodie-bag" from last time include €1,000 and an i-phone?

What does von der Leyen / Trump 'deal' say about EU?

The French and Germans don't seem best pleased about what she's done, and we can see why.  There might be several theses or lines of thought on this.

1. It's easy to portray it as craven, but it's solid realpolitik, and shows the EC** in a good light: their strategic priorities (bind USA into European defence / maintain support for Ukraine / stay on reasonable talking terms with Trump) were clear and they did the necessary in a decisive & fairly expeditious way. 
2. It's an existential triumph for the EC qua bureaucracy-priesthood, not only on the basis of 1 above, but because von der Leyen's people roundly ignored the national governments and have got clean away with it.  German & French vetoes?  They're history.
3. It's a tactical triumph for those wily EC negotiators: their preferred stratagem is to grind down the other side by dragging negotiations out into endless detail / prevarication / cherry-picking / make-believe governance issues (see Brexit); but when faced with an emergency, they still came up with the goods.  Knowing that Trump just lurves Big Numbers and of course Done Deals, they've "committed" to bizarre amounts of imports from the USA, and there isn't a cat's chance in Hell that these commitments can be honoured.  But the Dumb Donald goes home with his triumph (his own people certainly ain't gonna tell him he's been suckered - and maybe he knows it anyway but just loves the immediate optics)  and life carries on.
4. It suits DE and FR to bellyache and blame von der Leyen, but they know there was little alternative, and have let her do the deed - & front for it.  (But where, ultimately, does 'strategic bellyaching' lead?  Surely, only an ever-growing Euroscepticism across the whole continent?) 

Some of the above are perfectly mutually consistent.  Any other views?

ND

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** I.e. the very real Brussels priesthood, not the abstract political entity known as the EU

Macron's Cunning Plan, parts 14 & 15

So as well as completing the stitch-up over Sizewell and Hinkley (as discussed here many, many times), there's Macron's new "one out, one in" plan for the small boats.

Let's see if I've got this right.

So for every illegal that arrives on these shore that we send straight back, we must grant asylum to a "genuine" one.

But as we know, many of these people keep setting out, over and over again, until they succeed.

So. on a ratchet basis, one single illegal can be 'recycled' endlessly, to offload as many "genuines" from France as they are quickly able to turn him around for another crossing .. .. ?

Oh come on, Starmer can't be that stupid .. can he?  Please?

ND

Sizewell: another win for French nuclear blackmail

Among the large numbers bandied around by Rachel Reeves was of course well over £10bn of UK money for Sizewell C: and FID is yet to be taken!  Exactly whether this dosh is envisaged as outright cash (as has been the case with the billions already gifted to EDF, even before FID), or dumped straight onto electricity bills, or a combination, I have not yet discerned.  

It's still outrageous - at best a humongous leap of faith, the beneficiary of which is a French concern (and indeed the French state) that has proven itself many, many times over to be unworthy of trust in such matters.  In return for what?  A plant that, even on the most ambitious and optimistic assumptions, could not be generating electricity before the next-Parliament-but-two, and in the meantime will have cost all of us a great deal of non-returnable money.  Who said politicians' horizons extend only as far as the next election at best, and the next headline at worst?

Well of course none of this is to be taken at face value.  They are already pitching for headlines reading "thousands of jobs", although as we know, the hi-tech jobs involved will without doubt be squarely located in France.  The sop of a bit of civil engineering for UK firms - and not even 100% of that, if Hinkley Point C is any guide, which of course it is explicitly meant to be!  If Keynesianism is the guiding theory, you could get a great deal more for your money on vastly more useful civil engineering projects that might actually make some kind of economic return decades sooner than SZC ever could.  Just keeping the money in the UK would be a start. 

And of course there are other short-term considerations, the giveaway being Mr Frog who, on the exact subject of demanding more money for both SZC and HPC (for which, contractually, EDF has sole responsibility) recently stated: "We [UK + France] need to stick together on many subjects - on Ukraine, on all dimensions of our relationship".  We may be sure he really means "cooperation on Small Boats", the carrot of which which the French continually dangle, and then promptly withdraw a couple of weeks later.  Oh, and we must pay for that "cooperation", too.  Such an easy game.

Why are successive UK PMs and Chancellors such soft touches?  Blair, Brown, Cameron, Osborne, May, Hammond, Johnson, Starmer, Reeves ... it's only been Sunak who has ever demurred, and then without any meaningful force.  The rest have all danced to EDF's protracted, staccato jig.  I despair.

ND

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 

UK nuclear madness

Always remember what we said here a very long time ago: the whole point of France's nuclear policy is to get other nations to underwrite their astronomical nuclear liabilities.

This is precisely à propos of Mr W's prompting BTL here (he'll kindly correct any details that need correcting) ...

*   *   *   *   *

The Hinkley Point C / Sizewell C story so far:

When EDF (together with Centrica & later still the Chinese) acquired the old British Energy in 2008, they were immediately set on building more of their EPR design of nukes in the UK: HPC was nominated to be the first.  Recall that until after the 2005 GE, Blair was set against a nuke revival which he'd believed to be electoral anathema: but various voices** persuaded him it was a Good Idea.   EnSec at the time was of course ... Ed Miliband.  EDF had the effrontery to announce an HPC start-up date of 2017, and that it wouldn't require a penny-piece of subsidy - the latter line being official government policy up to and including the awful Chris Huhne (remember him?)  

Next milestone event was Fukushima 2011 which, to be fair, was outright force majeure and caused significant mods to be made to the design of the structure in which the EPR reactor would be housed.  OK, so the costs went up as a consequence.  But that was the last externality that EDF can truly be excused of: covid might just also creep in to the reckoning, but not inflation, their other bleat.

During the regime of Ed Davey - to be fair, egged on by that git George Osborne - suddenly EDF was going to get subsidised.  We have written about the awful HPC CfD contract many times here.  It has only one saving grace, on paper at least: project cost overruns are solely for the account of EDF / the Chinese (who've now buggered off) / Centrica.  But given the outrageous one-way changes subsequently made to the CfD in EDF's favour, at EDF's demand, even this is of little comfort.  The project overruns are horrendous; and we know EDF will hold a gun to HMG's head for outright cash subventions at some point.  (Personally I suspect this has already happened, disguised as SZC payments, see below.)

To repeat: once the Fukushima design changes were made, everything subsequently is down to EDF's monstrous incompetence.  EDF hints that UK regulators have kept tinkering unreasonably with new design demands, but remember: the CfD states that unless a new regulation could have reasonably been foreseen by EDF, the latter is indemnified against extra costs arising.  So we can put 'costly regulatory tinkering' out of our minds.

Fast-forward to SZC

EDF, of course, realised even before the ink was on the CfD (which they only signed because they thought Brexit would scupper the project altogether) that they couldn't carry out SZC on the terms explicitly for SZC itself that are actually contained in the HPC contract (i.e. for SZC as a put-option for EDF).  So they carefully played a lobbying game resulting in Boris agreeing to finance SZC on a US-style 'rate base' footing (i.e. underwritten directly by taxpayers) - and then, got HMG to stump up hard cash: a billion here, a couple more there ...  now the cash commitment has hit £11 bn of taxpayer money, rather than the usual 'stick it all on the electricity bill'.  AND - amazingly - although EDF has yet to take FID on SZC, the new reactor is already under construction in France, paid for by us.  FFS !  Talk about "too big to fail" ...

*   *   *   *   *  

So now we loop back to the very first line of this post.  Also, we should stew in the details of how badly in trouble HPC is, and how cash-strapped and liability-riddled EDF is in general; how much HMG needs French cooperation on the Boats issue; and the perennial suspicion the whole civil nuclear programme is there to underpin the military nukes ... and you have a recipe for an ongoing haemorrhage of taxpayers' cash that starts to look seriously injurious.  And in the middle of this, Miliband thinks he can get electricity bills down!

An appalling tale - egregious even by the standards of HMG cockups and nuclear age skullduggery.  I have nothing against nukes in principle: but in practice they just never add up.  If we wanted an SZC, let it be remembered that by far our best-performing nuke has been SZB.  We should have 'simply' (hah!) built an updated SZB. 

ND  

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** including one G.Brown, brother of whom worked for, errrr, EDF

General - if you follow the tags, you'll find loads more C@W posts on these topics.

'We are in 1938': excellent weekend read

 

'Defence', you understand

... if you don't mind your weekend peace being rudely shattered.

From the Graun, of all places.

ND

France: always hanging back, always wanting to share the credit

A first today - a French Air Force recce aircraft over the Black Sea!  There have been non-stop US, UK, Italian, even Polish, Swedish and Finnish recce flights in support of Ukraine, but this is the first (openly detectable) French one.

Now, given that they have had the capability all along, why would this be?  It's the usual French thing.  Not us, gov, we're not like those warmongering Yanks and Brits, we're not feeding this conflict by providing one side with intelligence (actually, we don't have any), we're not helpfully wargaming strategies with one of the protagonists: we're responsible peace-loving people, neutral, here to negotiate like statesmen!  We'll talk Putin round, we'll get Xi onside ...

Oh, what's that? - the big Ukrainian counter-offensive push is on for next week?  OK, we're in, we're in!  They couldn't do it without us!  A seat at the Top Table for us!

Running with the hares, hunting with the hounds, or what?   Or perhaps the playground coward, rushing in to kick the guy who's already down on the floor.  Ho hum, better late than never.

ND

Winter draws on ...

 ... and we are in better shape than might have been the case, all things being considered.  Don Cox noted BTL that the Rough gas storage facility has started up again** - a very curious, nay, fishy 'miracle', as we've noted before - albeit at 20% of its former capacity: but every little helps.  Several UK coal plants have been revived, to be on standby in case the gas runs out and the wind doesn't blow.  And the Germans have moved mountains to get floating LNG receiving import facilities online, again with the caveat that the volumes won't be as great as all that.  They nearly made their ambitious gas storage inventory targets before going into winter, too.  They, also, have been busily reviving coal, and indeed lignite plants for reserve duty.  And they've done what I and others thought was probably not possible, in squeezing a few extra months out of the nukes that were set for closure.  This wasn't possible with Hinkley Point B in this country, despite government pleading and financial blandishments: HPB was closing (and has indeed closed, as of August) due to age and infirmity, whereas the German nukes were closing by political fiat.  That doesn't mean Scholtz will get any more months out of them next year, because the supporting infrastructure has been shutting down, too.

Several other EU nations, notably the Spanish, have been preparing very well, too.

On the supply-side downside, the French are again falling hugely short.  Their nuke fleet was staggering back to its feet for winter in a partial way, after extensive safety-related closures, only to be hit by a wave of strikes.  Well, there you go, Macron: it's a continuation of massive imports and the highest (wholesale) electricity prices in Europe for you, then. 

This is also proving very costly for Germany, too - but I always said nobody should bet against their ability to put their shoulders to the wheel.  You have to laugh when Macron throws a strop when it's announced by Germany that they are budgeting EUR 200 bn for their energy measures.  Merde! That will distort the European energy market!  Well what did he think:  the richest nation in Europe would volunteer to freeze, out of fellow-feeling for the Frogs?

Talking of distorting the market, France is also desperately trying to get the EC to introduce a "cap on wholesale gas prices" - whatever that might conceivably mean in a truly global gas market.  I won't bore everyone with my endless refrain that most European politicians don't understand how markets work.  I used to finger the Germans most specifically for this, but it now looks as though most of the top players in Scholz's government have taken some rapid lessons on this topic since February, and know the score a little better.  Tough titty, Macron - but you had it coming.

I only hope the new government here looks him squarely in the eye and tells him he can forget any hopes for Sizewell C he might have nurtured on behalf of the French équipe nucléaire; not on the terms he had in mind, anyhow.  We've had enough of PMs bowing the knee to EDF in these matters.

Hold tight for the coming winter.

ND

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** Anon asked:  anything to do with the cost of gas futures at the mo? And the implications for Russia / Middle East LPG. 

The forward market is in very strong contango at the moment (having been for months in backwardation, which some theorists say is impossible for a commodity like gas).  This betokens market sentiment that for right now (i.e. until really cold weather strikes) Europe is looking OK for gas supply - a function of all those efforts noted above - and that winter 2023-24 now looks to be the big problem, despite some some idiot political pundits saying the coming winter will be the last we need to worry about.  Fully-laden LNG tankers are stacked up off the Atlantic coasts of UK / France / Spain, effectively acting as floating storage.  So yes, Anon, Rough (and UK plc) is in a position to benefit from this current situation.  Rough, as you prob know, is 'seasonal' storage, i.e. designed only really for a single annual cycle of injection and withdrawal; and although there's plenty of volatility across the whole forward curve (which benefits such facilities) it pales into insignificance compared to the vol in the spot and short-dated markets, which benefits facilities with much shorter cycles (e.g. 1 or 2 months).  I hope (but rather doubt) that HMG allowed Centrica to get on with their 'Rough miracle' without public money; because Centrica has played a pretty shifty game on this. 

Whilst on the subject of storage economics: as you'd expect, owners of grid-scale batteries, limited though they are in capability, have been making a fortune for more than a year now: ditto owners of gas-fired peaking plants.  Vol is the main play in town, now that simply going long isn't a one-way bet any more.  For example, the current gas market contango will reverse in a matter of days if a Beast from the East hits (energy beast, that is - not Putin again).

Incidentally, the personal burnout in energy traders has to be seen to be believed.  Initially they were just making fortunes; but now liquidity and credit issues are bearing down on them, and they can drop $10m on a cargo of LNG as easily as make it, in the touch of a button.  Hairy times. 

Russian culture of contempt for Ukraine

A while back before the fighting started, I related some first hand experiences that convinced me there was enough resentment amongst Ukrainians of the arrogant, nay racist, Russian attitude towards them that their resistance would be of the 1939 Finnish variety, as opposed to the French 1940 vintage.  In this context I mentioned an incident at a business dinner in Moscow where a Ukrainian was present and a Russian told a joke, the punchline of which was to compare Ukrainians unfavourably with those of African descent, (which in Russian parlance is seriously insulting). 

And here we are!  A recent Russian cartoon.

The caption is in cod-Ukrainian, which any Russian would understand.   The two Ukrainian cavemen, dwelling amidst the bombed-out ruins, have walked past a desecrated statue of Lenin that someone has replaced with a little sign saying 'glory to Ukraine'.   I'm having trouble translating one word - СОВОК **- but anyhow, one says to the other, That's how we smash up the entire Moscow "СОВОК" - now, back to the cave to celebrate the "victory"!  The twofold suggestion is clear:  they are sub-human neanderthals; and if they think they've done any serious damage to Russian plans, they've a surprise coming.

Q.E.D.  Not a recipe for taking the other side seriously.  And of course the surprises have mostly been coming from the opposite direction ...

ND

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** СОВОК, google tells me, means the same in both languages, namely "a scoop", in the wholly literal sense of a low-grade implement (- including, e.g., a pooperscoop) - with no indication it has a journalistic usage as in English.  In the cartoon, it's in inverted commas, either suggesting a colloquial meaning or, as with the other word in inverted commas, ПЕРЕМОГУ (victory), suggesting a gross misappreciation of something on the part of the cavemen.  

I'm assuming it's meant to imply the Ukrainians might have managed to destroy some modest piece of Russian military equipment that's of no consequence.  Or maybe it's the statue?  Or that they don't realise they've destroyed something much more valuable than they know?   But if one of our, *ahem*, many new Russian readers would like to put us onto a better rendering of the term in this context, we'd be happy to hear from them.

UPDATE:  a reader has kindly cleared this up for us - see BTL comments: it seems to be a slighting term for someone that hankers after the old Soviet days.  Makes perfect sense (it's relating to the defacement of the statue after all, then) - thanks!

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

Contra Starkey, contra Putin: "Ukraine" is a Real Thing

The Starkey lecturette we were directed to the other day is very good viewing indeed - all manner of interesting perspectives.  I can't go along with all of it, however.  As noted before, the degree of strategic capability we should attribute to Putin is very much open to question, as is his 'hero' status in the non western world.

There's something else that needs to be challenged, if not on the facts then certainly on the interpretation.  Right at the beginning, Starkey notes that through most years of recorded history we won't find 'Ukraine' on the map.  His clear implication, I suggest, is that Ukraine is therefore not a 'proper entity' in some sense - a latter-day confection - which very much invites the next step of "so maybe we shouldn't get exercised about something which lacks status in that way". 

However much it's important for some purposes to learn the history, for other purposes we needn't get into "what are the origins of modern-day Ukraine?".  Specifically, there's the rather pointed alternative question: "will they stand and fight?".   A few days before it all kicked off, against a BTL comment that pointed to several recent regimes that had simply crumbled in the face of a determined military thrust, I offered the view that Finland 1939-40 was the appropriate counter example (NOT France 1940); and that "Ukrainian nationalism is a real thing".  If that's right - and I remain of the view that it is - the answer to Starkey's observation is a resounding "so what?".  If they stand and fight, what's the relevance for immediate practical purposes as to how they came by their national identity?

My views on this stem from when I worked in Moscow, many years ago.  I was determined to learn the language, and took on a Russian tutor.  At a very early stage I brought him a list of my Russian staff and asked him how I should correctly pronounce their names (knowing that, for example, Олег would put up with being called Oh-leg, but really it is more like Alyeck).   The tutor scanned down the list, and with a look of utter disgust lighted upon one name:  This is a Ukrainian name, he spat out - why do you employ her?

And so it went on.   At one particularly memorable business lunch when my boss from the US was over, one of the assembled host told a joke, the punchline of which was to compare Ukrainians unfavourably with certain others of mankind's races, and also the apes.  This was solemnly translated for my man, who went purple but didn't know quite what else to do.  But it was par for the course in Moscow.

In a later business incarnation I found myself working alongside a Ukrainian for a sustained period, who gave me the other side of the picture over a beer or three.

Any suggestion on Putin's part that Russians and Ukrainians are blood-brothers that have been artificially and temporarily separated, doesn't ring at all true to me.  Ukrainian nationalism is a Thing alright, wherever it came from and whenever it dates from - and quite tangible enough to fuel serious resistance.  As we see before us daily.  I'm still on my Finland-not-France analogy.

ND   

PS: I might add that if it rumbles on into a stalemate where the west keeps the Ukrainians armed and fighting as did Russia and China keep the North Vietnamese, this Russian gentleman suggests we may live to regret it.  As with Starkey, we're not obliged to agree with everything he says: but it's a compelling little essay.

PPS - an afterthought: if Ukraine "didn't exist" for much of history, then how's about, errrr, Germany?  Italy?   etc etc etc 

Historic Macron / Putin meeting

 

France vs Switzerland and the limits of the power of money

 I don't normally write about the Football here (despite being one of my main real life hobbies), but it got me thinking last night about the meaning of money and wages. The reason for this was the performance of the French team against Switzerland. Both sides full of highly paid footballers - albeit not playing for money in an international tournament. 

One of the main and best players on the French team was Paul Pogba, he even scored a sumptuous goal to put France up 3-1. However, even though he played quite well, he was very fitful. Indeed the last Swiss goal was caused by him losing the ball. 

The whole French team could only really be bothered to try for a few minutes in the second half, they went 3-1 up but it was not enough in the end. The Swiss soldiered on. 

The reason I mention wages is this is also, for Paul Pogba, the same criticism he gets at Manchester united, in that he rarely plays to his potential. No matter how much money, or in international matches, fame and reputation, is at stake, he can't motivate himself. 

For businesses, this is a sound reason not to overpay salaries or to expect people to transform themselves into better workers because of pay rises. Much better is performance based pay that might impact behaviours, but the Euro's show us that even this is a very hard thing to achieve. 

COP-26: Fiasco Foretold

I'm not sure what coincidence has the UK hosting both the G7 and COP-26 within months of each other, but there we are: two rather visible "opportunities" for Boris to go grandstanding on the world stage and promote whatever vision he has of post-Brexit Britain.  And he's already decided they must go ahead in the flesh, carbon footprint and all.  What could go wrong?

It's COP-26 that could go wrong: but the G7 may play a role in this too.

G7 itself will always be relatively straightforward: it's a meeting of friends (more or less), all fairly united against, *ahem*, China & Russia & general global wickedness, all happy to subscribe to a self-congratulatory closing communiqué.  It's being held in sunny Cornwall with the usual excellent preparations (we are still very good at this kind of thing).  Local businesses and residents that might be adversely impacted have been given a bung to holiday somewhere else for the duration.  There's a big local RAF station (with one of the world's longest runways) nearby for security, and making Biden's people feel comfortable.  (Check it out on google earth - there's a baseball diamond right in the middle ...)  Many of the entourages will be housed on a cruise ship offshore Falmouth, nicely out of harm's way.

BUT.  The protesters are massing.  Us all being democracies, like, this is to be, errr, accepted if not really encouraged.  OK, it's quite hard for XR to intercept VIPs who are being helicoptered in from very secure locations ... but hey, it's summertime; some of these nutters like to spend their summers stoned and causing trouble on the beaches around Newquay anyway; they've become pretty adept at making spectacles of themselves; and the media love a good visual ...

Hopefully not: but I think we may foresee some bother.  But that could be quite domestic in scale (and easy to contain) compared with what might happen in Glasgow in November when something like 30,000 delegates show up.  Some of those will essentially be protesters themselves - and try keeping them all out of harm's way.  Does Boris have a plan that ends triumphantly for him?  It doesn't seem that there could be any certainty about that in advance.

• the protesters will have had a dry run at G7, and will potentially have some scores to settle with Plod.  There's many a conference in the past that is mostly known for the fisticuffs.
  
• the EU won't exactly be cheering Boris on.
• so many countries now have "legally binding" zero-carbon targets, there's loads of scope for legalistic nit-picking about whether Enough Is Being Done - quite sufficient to derail a grandiose closing statement of the kind the hosts always want to make.

After herculean diplomatic efforts before and during, the French only just pulled this off at COP-21 in 2015, and then, only by a sleight of hand - Intended Nationally Determined Contributions, hahah! - that everyone's rumbled now.  Indeed, it was widely pilloried for its emptiness almost immediately afterwards.

We may be sure the NGOs will be after something as lot more tangible this time.  Sadly, I fear this means Boris will promise something Green, unilateral and tremendously stupid on our behalves to get his headlines.  Oh dear.

ND

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

Macron to May: "Be My Guest !"

So Mrs May has ventured into Château Macron.  I think we know what she walked into ... (with apologies to Disney)

*   *   *   *   *

Ma chère Thérèse, it is with the greatest pleasure that we welcome you tonight. And now we invite you to sit up straight, listen carefully, just have a little look at this document you’re going to sign … as the federasts proudly present – your stuffing!

Be my guest, Manu’s guest 
Put our *friendship* to the test 
Tie this noose around your neck, cherie, and dance at our behest 
40 billion? Not enough! 
Why, we only live to stuff 
Read clause 20, it’s a stonker 
Don't believe me? Ask old Juncker!

Market access? - not a chance 
After all, Miss, this is France 
And it’s preordained you’ll come off second best 
Go on - unfold your menu 
Just take a glance and then you'll 
Be depressed – suicidally depressed

On the floor, as you kneel, 
Start to beg, start to squeal 
We'll prepare and serve with flair 
An horrific exit deal 
You're alone, and you're scared 
But your fate is all prepared 
That is Selmayr you hear laughing 
As he contemplates your shafting

We tell jokes, slap our thighs 
We can scarce believe our eyes 
As we watch you in your Whitehall vipers’ nest 
You will have to bend right over 
If we’re not to blockade Dover - 
Just do what Olly tells you, he knows best!

We all guessed your request 
Would leave Europe unimpressed 
From Madrid to Rome and Paris, 
From Berlin to Budapest -
“She’ll want trade, she’ll want terms 
But it’s just a can of worms” 
While we’re giving her a shoeing 
Back in Britain trouble’s brewing

Getting warm, getting hot 
Heaven's sakes! She’s in a spot - 
Much more, she’ll have a cardiac arrest!
We've still got a lot to do,
In the coming day or two 
She’s hard-pressed, she’s distressed
Her red lines are just a jest -
She’s my guest, she's my guest, she's my guest!

Be my guest, be my guest! 
Were you hoping for beau geste? 
When you meekly signed the Hinkley deal 
You’d clearly failed the test 
You’d no cool, you’d no verve 
You had plainly lost your nerve 
Martin’s really just a sweetie - 
Let him help you with this treaty

Clause by clause, one by one 
'Til you shout, “Enough, I'm done” 
But there’ll be no ducking out, or break for rest 
Only after you’ve been beat up 
Will we let you put your feet up 
Don’t protest - be my guest, be my guest!

ND                                                                                        ©  2018

Macron/Trump = Blair/Bush?

That's about it really - a neat idea to explore, that doesn't require much elaboration to set the ball rolling.

It's from the Graun, who introduce it thus: 

young European leader flies to Washington on an official visit. He is a modernising charmer from the progressive wing of politics, articulate and comfortable with the media. He arrives to meet an American president whose politics are emphatically not his, and whose election has dismayed US liberals, disrupted the transatlantic alliance and alienated European opinion. The new US president is an American exceptionalist. He is no respecter of human rights and international institutions. But the European leader has decided to hug him close in the hope of influencing his decisions. Washington rolls out the red carpet. It is captivated by the visitor’s eloquence and charisma, such contrasts to their own leader’s bombast. Improbably, the two men find themselves starting to make big plans together...

 They suggest it didn't end well for Tony, though.  Discuss!

ND

Dreaming of Macron

In many respects it's surprising there hasn't been more talk of a third party before now.  Given that a big majority of MPs were pro Remain - at least, until they saw which way their constituents voted - one could have imagined a Remainder voting-bloc in Parliament with sufficient cohesion (maybe even whipping) to constitute a single-issue Party of sorts.

But to date we've only seen the faintest shadow of such organisation: too little to count as a real entity, so far as I can judge.  And then, this weekend, the papers seem to have been briefed that a well-funded new party is on the way.  The Observer / Grauniad is, of course, a particular sucker for this stuff: Polly Toynbee even became an SDP candidate all those years ago.   

The sponsors are obviously dreaming of a Macron in British clothing.  (Polly probably dreams of Macron without any clothing - a charismatic frog with a penchant for older women ...)  These 'third party' fads come round from time to time, for sure: but it really isn't the British Way.

Speaking of Macron, myself & Mrs D have just returned from our usual spring break in Paris, where once again we have been incommoded by the French unions en grève.  We did at least avoid being gassed this time; but they are still a bloody nuisance.   Interestingly, as well as being determined to thwart Macron's plans to reform the French economy, the sans-culottes are protesting that the EU is a conspiracy to eliminate French public services (by which they mean, state ownership of public services, a hallowed concept for many over there).

Our French friends tell us Macron in turn is 100% determined to face them down.  Obviously, Sarkozy and Hollande both tried and failed; but he's convinced he's different.  Maybe he is - his mandate is seemingly big enough, and it's his big bid for gloire éternelle - but only time will tell.

Anyhow:  hard to see where the Remainders are going to find a Brit equivalent to lead their third party.   Are any C@W readers limbering up to join such an enterprise?

ND

UPDATE - here's an academic review of the psephological challenges faced by a putative 3rd party in UK politics  [ link now fixed ]

Hop It, Frog

So, farewell then, Vincent de Rivaz, point-man for France's baleful nuclear policy in the UK, architect of Hinkley Point C, persistent and devious lobbyist, and triumphant hands-down victor over the Civil Service and successive UK governments.  

Oh, and originator of the Radioactive Turd.

 
It was your machinations last summer (at the behest of, and strongly backed up by Hollande) which tipped off the whole world that Theresa May was Not Up To the Job.

Can't see the back of you soon enough.

ND

PS - I hope, however, that you live long enough to see the HPC project abandoned without ever having generated a single KWh.  Of which I reckon there's a fair chance.