Brexit Watch

okocha wrote:Cake and wine = falure to lead by example, showing contempt for the citizens he is meant to be serving.

Whitesince63 wrote:

Can’t and won’t deny that Oko and it may yet cost him his job but like the majority I believe, sorting out the economy and the world situation is much more important than Partygate, however disgraceful it was. I can only hope that a weakened and chastised PM can now be forced to drop his ridiculous green agenda, face reality on energy and get Brexit done properly, including kicking the arrogant EU idiots up the backside and returning NI fully to the U.K.

Whitesince63 wrote:My solution? Simple, firstly increase the extraction of our own oil and gas, pass the licenses to allow companies to frack for gas. Open up the necessary coal mines to allow essential industries like steel and cement to produce good without importing it. We live on islands which allow us to be completely self sufficient without having to rely on imports.

I know you don’t like Brexit but free from the restrictions of the EU, we have the opportunity to completely reinvigorate our manufacturing and intellectual sectors. We are lucky to live in arguably the most innovative and entrepreneurial country in the world, including a finance structure more than happy to invest in new industries. Globalisation is on the wane, which is why I fear most for the EU, as countries rediscover the reality that producing goods close to home is not only greener but also more efficient. We have one of the most developed distribution set ups in the world with which to service and supply new industries created here. 

Take green energy. I’m sure everybody agrees on the need to move towards renewables but surely it is more sensible to produce the structures needed here, rather than import them from the likes of China? We need the government to invest heavily to support such industries and with the engineering strength we have, it can be done quickly. We can produce much more of our own food, including products once considered seasonal like salads using modern methods and greenhouse technology. Fruit, vegetables and farming generally can be huge areas of growth and why are we importing 95% of our processed potato goods like chips and roasts from a Belgian company? It’s madness when it can be produced here. At the moment, companies are strangled by red tape and regulations, much of which can now be burnt and I’m not talking about lowering standards. Quite the reverse in fact as we should have standards that others have to match on employment and workers rights laws as well as animal welfare.

The government needs to have a proper long term plan to invest in these industries by cutting both taxes and regulations to allow investors and entrepreneurs to benefit, creating new well paid jobs as well as extra revenue to spend on the schools and hospitals we need. As I said, it’s called capitalism. At the moment we might as well have a real Labour government because that’s what this bunch of non Tories are. Until there’s a concerted move back to the right of centre this country’s going nowhere and if Boris continues to waste the biggest majority since Maggie, that’s the reason he should be binned, not because of cake and wine.

T.R.O.Y. wrote:

I disagree with almost all of it but fair enough, that's certainly one long term strategy. What about the short term though? Costs are sky rocketing, we already have a cost of living crisis - what's the solution?

wanderlust wrote:
I really struggle with your dislike of investment in green energy White as even if we ignore the environmental considerations and the potential advantages of becoming a world leader in green technology - or at least catching up - the sheer cost of going back to e.g. coal makes it unviable - it's simply not an option we can afford. Even a small 1gigawatt coal power station costs between  £1 and 3 billion to build (depending on how polluting you want it to be) but the raw material cost - reopening pits which Thatcher herself deemed mined out and unviable - or paying an import premium - make the real costs huge and unreliable. Whereas we have a free supply of wind, waves and tides, hydro, geothermal and sunlight. And nuclear for that matter, plus biofuels to some extent.
And with gas and oil only going in one direction supply and pricewise and with the Tories having largely pawned off our own gas and oil resources to global companies  over the last 50 years anyway - global companies who avoid paying us taxes for the fruits of the licences our idiot government gave them - surely our only realistic and affordable long term  "opportunity" is to go green and give green technologies the investment that the fossil fuel magnates have starved it of?

Putting aside the environmental issues at stake here, I just don't understand the basic economics of your argument White. Can you explain it to me?

wanderlust wrote:
Not sure there is one - we're sitting on an energy timebomb set to go off in 3 years time unless the government postpone the planned closure of half our nuclear plants. We've burned our bridges with gas and oil unless we rescind the contracts and commandeer and nationalise the foreign businesses operating in our waters with military force which won't go down well and coal was on it's last legs anyway. Worst of all, we underinvested in the development of alternatives for 50 years so their efficiency isn't yet where it needs to be although TBF the international fossil fuel companies were allowed to snap up all the early patents so they could park them on a shelf to eliminate the competition. And we've sold off our rights to own and operate the nuclear plants on our own soil. Barring a miracle, we're f*cked.

That said, one achievable solution outside this scenario is to ration power, insulate everything, put solar panels on every roof and ground and air source heat pumps in every home where it's possible to do so, surround the country with wave generators and windfarms, put mini hydro plants in every river and build our own nuclear plants whilst investing heavily in new tech such as hydrogen cells - only this time renationalising everything it so it belongs to the British people and we won't be dependent on imports.

Either way it's going to be expensive and the implications for the countryside and coastline will be massive.

Whitesince63 wrote:
Sorry lusty but you’re living in cloud cuckoo land. We will never own the energy companies again, we couldn’t even begin to afford it and where is all the money coming from to invest in all the technology you’re quoting for wave and wind power, plus the nuclear and the hydrogen? Face it, it can only be done by private capital with the government agreeing taxation levels for what’s extracted, exactly as we have now.

Where’s the point in the government spending our money on goods for wind and solar, imported from China? Support and encourage our own companies to do it here instead. Yes, the government will have to offer financial support as it has done with the new British Volt battery plant in the North East. That’s where our money should be spent.

Look at where the government is investing and reducing red tape with fintech companies. There were more Fintech deals constructed in the U.K. last year than anywhere outside the US and more that Germany, France and China combined. Investment rose from $5.3b to $37.3b in one year alone making us by far the biggest market in Europe. These are the new industries of the future but the same thing can happen with renewable infrastructure if we only invest in it ourselves. For now, oil and gas are todays fuels and cutting them off has caused our problem. The US with their home produced gas and oil aren’t suffering like we are and since we could also be self sufficient, that’s where we should be for today. Tomorrow will come but not yet.

T.R.O.Y. wrote:Nobody’s suggesting Shell should volunteer to pay more tax, that’s the governments job.

Why should they pay? Because they are the ones making huge profits as a result of this crisis at the expense of the tax payer - the balance is entirely wrong.

They’ve had a record breaking first quarter, and the consumer is set for record breaking price increases. It’s up to the government to redress that balance - but they choose to side with big business every time.

What exactly is your solution?

wanderlust wrote:

wanderlust wrote:As soon as entrepreneurs and investors make real big money they leave the country.
There is an entire industry devoted to them minimising their contribution to this country.
If you have any belief in this country - and we are led to believe that most Tories are nationalists - why encourage foreign (and domestic) vultures to strip our bones when we could be retaining control AND benefiting from the profits from our resources and labour instead of watching it disappear offshore?

Why do you think there are so many foreign billionaires backing the Tories?

Whitesince63 wrote:

Rubbish, come on Lusty, you’re better than that. The government are attempting to make it easier for firms to grow, as well as list on the market here. Many are now doing that as I pointed out in a recent post. They are also making it more difficult for foreign companies to come in and steal our technology and defence businesses which have been raped and pillaged for long enough under successive governments. At the same time they are trying, successfully it seems, to encourage more external investment. Now we’re free of the EU restrictions we can support companies in so many different ways.