Belligerent Tory on talk radio.

[Mr Gus]

Some Tory with his tongue out in the past 15 minutes (talk raduo) saying nuclear is cheaper than the "heavily subsidised renewables sector", (wind was his target) ...arschloche

Doubtless had crib notes he couldn't read so made crud up, if there is a replay it was prior to 10.15am (Sunday morning)if anyone wishes to counter it & state fact to the station (likely ignored)

[Oldgreybeard]

The problem is that the media will promote the views of ignorant idiots to a greater extent that they will promote the views of those that know what they are talking about. Whilst I remain convinced that nuclear is essential, if only to tide us over until we can clean up all other generation, there is absolutely no doubt at all that its whole life cost per unit of energy produced is astronomical when compared to just about any other way of generating electricity. How anyone could try and argue otherwise is beyond me, given what we know about the construction, operation and decommissioning costs of nuclear power stations. Anyone only needs to glance at the costs of Hinkley Point C to see how expensive it is as a technology. There's also the fact that Hinkley is being subsidised to the tune of around £30bn by virtue of the guaranteed price for the energy it produces, a price that is way higher than that for wind or solar.

[Mr Gus]

You, me, & the bed-post know that OGB, ...but that's a career Tory politician lie telling wet dream that is harder to correct after the event.

Handy for born liars eh!?

I think he's still talking, it's bingo scorecard of phraseology hit full house ages back. (Brighton & hove mp on currently, ..maybe the opposition)

[Bugtownboy]

I’m finding it very concerning the ‘noise’ (red meat comments for the Daily Fail readers) from the Tory party, particularly Sunak and Truss.

They are both being very negative towards RE, particularly on-shore stuff that I’m sure is playing to the audience.

Wouldn’t surprise me if we started new FF extraction.

It’s not just RE, though, workers rights, public services, food, water, environmental standards and more look to be easy targets.

We really are regressing as a society.

[Oldgreybeard]

I think the underlying problem is that RE doesn't offer the traditional Tory ruling class the same rip off opportunities that FF and nuclear do. If you look at where the powerful people in the Tory party get their money a great deal of it comes from business interests associated with industries other than RE, or from the banking and finance sectors where again it is the non-RE industries that dominate.

They have always been a party that exists primarily to feather their own nests, always amazes me that so many ordinary working class people just never seem to see this, even after so many were shafted by Thatcher. The greed and focus on making the wealthy more wealthy, with little or no regard to the social consequences, reminds me of the way businesses came to dominate society in the Industrial Revolution, exploiting workers in a way that had never been seen before. The Tories just want to maintain that pattern. It doesn't help that being a politician has become such a thankless job that few that have a genuine interest in improving society are able to survive long.

[Mr Gus]

Yup, my thoughts on the "secret approval" announced this morning by Boris for more nuclear is part of that, ..twistier than a snake on a slalom slope.

Secret deals for nuclear (& secretive funding deals) all part of that regardless of where we stand regarding energy "emergency"

[spread-tee]

Remember though that right now Sunak and Truss are speaking to 160,000 tory party members who mostly live with their heads up their arses (apologies to any that are sane) so they need to trot out the standard DM Fascist drivel, once they take office the story will change to some other flavour of drivel. My guess is that Truss will implode fairly quickly and IF Starmer and his numpties can hold it together they MIGHT take over. (which will be slightly less bad)

Desp

[Bugtownboy]

I agree with your opinion of Truss - she may have made Head Girl at some point. Perhaps she’s able to convince the local right wing WI.

Leading a country to maintain a semblance of respect outside its border’s- not sure.

For whatever reason, I’m sure she’ll be the chosen one.

Interesting talking to folk in mainland Europe/EU about our position over the last few years - the blonde buffoon was not well respected; haven’t had an opportunity to discuss the Truss

[Mart]

Remember though that right now Sunak and Truss are speaking to 160,000 tory party members who mostly live with their heads up their arses (apologies to any that are sane) so they need to trot out the standard DM Fascist drivel, once they take office the story will change to some other flavour of drivel. My guess is that Truss will implode fairly quickly and IF Starmer and his numpties can hold it together they MIGHT take over. (which will be slightly less bad)

Desp

Yeah, I was chatting about this with Wifey recently, when all the anti wind and PV guff was being spouted. They aren't talking to voters in general, they aren't even talking to Tory voters, they are just talking to the Tory party members, who I assume (and this may be unfair) are largely older, wealthier, white people, and possibly weighted towards males too. So they are saying what those people want to hear, despite Tory voters also being strongly supportive of RE.


OGB - I've always caveated this assumption with the fact I may be making it up, but PV and onshore wind don't provide the opportunities for directorships for MP's when they retire, or to be more correct, high paying roles, with little to no work needed. But FF's, nuclear, and (I assume) offshore wind, do. So they can be bought (legally, if not morally) by those industries.

Of course, if I'm right about offshore wind, then to an extent 'HOORAY', at least something good has come out of it.


Another general thought I've had, is that we are now hopefully only 3 new Tory leaders away from reaching 100% (net) low carbon leccy in the UK, assuming roughly 2.5yrs per idiotic failure. Though I must admit a quick guilty secret - I quite liked Theresa May, she was a poor to middling PM, but it's been a long time since I believed one was honest(ish).

[Oldgreybeard]

It always surprises me how much fuss the media make over leadership elections when the reality is that only 0.23% of the entire population of our supposed democracy get to vote for our new PM. Leaving aside the fact that the 0.23% that control how our country is led are themselves wholly unrepresentative of the population, the process is about as deeply flawed as it is possible to get. Arguably the population of Russia have more control over their choice of leader than we do.

We call ourselves a democracy, and the views of other nations are that we are seen as the seat of democracy in the world, with our government being referred to as the "Mother of all Parliaments". The reality is that our system has never been truly democratic, and even though we gave most ordinary people the right to vote from 1928 onwards, we hardly have an exemplary record when it comes to having a proper democratic system.

My constituency, for example, has always been Tory and most probably always will be, unless the system changes. No other party has ever even managed to gain half the number of votes of the incumbent, despite the fact that the incumbent has only ever managed to get around 30% of the vote. The system is broken, and is long overdue for change, as many, many people feel that their vote is worthless, as they know that they have no realistic chance of having any effect at all on who governs them.