Utopia, you are standing in it!

I was always a bit ambivalent on the idea of a public holiday to mark the death (and life) of Her Late Majesty: there were (and are) better, cheaper, and more enduring things that could (have) been done. And the more so when the day chosen seems less to do with Queen Elizabeth (whose funeral and burial were a week ago) and more to do with the Prime Minister’s schedule. But here we are.

It seemed like a good day to potter in the old data and see how things went, in terms of relative economic performance, for the independent countries of which the Queen was monarch throughout her reign – the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Back in 1952 there were a few others – South Africa, Pakistan, and (as it then was) Ceylon. The other current realms (PNG, the Solomons, Belize, and so on) were not…

I am a big fan of Bjørn Lomborg but not for the reasons you think. Most Lomborg fans highlight the Skeptical Environmentalistas their preferred work. I admire How to Spend $50 Billion to Make the World a Better Place. The logic in that book is elegantly simple for an economist as it argues for dealing with the world’s problems using cost-benefit analysis. After all, you cannot deal with every problem and priorities must be set according to which priority is most likely to generate massive benefits.

Obviously, some nuances can be made. For example, I am inclined to think that a sizable share (but not the majority) of the cost of climate change can be dealt with by encouraging economic development. As Richard Tol argued in thisReview of Environmental Economics and Policy article, “poverty reduction complements greenhouse gas emissions reductions”. However, this criticism is one that…

Italy votes in general elections today. The Brothers of Italy is expected to be the largest party, in a pre-electoral alliance with the League and Forza Italia that may end up with a substantial majority of seats in both houses.

The electoral system is similar to that used in 2018 in that it is mixed-member majoritarian despite having just over 60% of seats elected in the party-list proportional component of the system. In an important sense, however, this year’s version is even more majoritarian–the size of both chambers has been reduced substantially. Other things equal–as they are–a smaller assembly is less proportional (or “permissive” to small parties). And when you combine a relatively majoritarian system with a smaller assembly, you get a more majoritarian system overall. The new Chamber of Deputies, at 400 seats, is closer to the cube root law expectation for a country the size of…

During the recently concluded Conservative leadership contest, the government appeared to be in a holding pattern, taking little or no action of substance until the election of Boris Johnson’s successor. But did the government, which had a substantial parliamentary majority and an electoral mandate, need to act as if it was merely a ‘caretaker’? Robert Hazell explains that the rules around a ‘lame duck’ PM remain fuzzy, and argues that steps must be taken to clarify the position as soon as possible.

Something very strange happened at Westminster over the summer: a government which enjoyed a comfortable working majority of 71 seats was declared to be a caretaker which could not take any major decisions. It was variously accused of being a ‘zombie government’ ‘asleep at the wheel’, and incapable of taking urgent decisions required by the energy crisis. In its defence the government might…

Britain’s power consumers (or what’s left of them) are brewing for a full-scale revolt.

12 months ago, the average annual energy bill was £1,400 ($2,400). Energy industry analyst Cornwall Insight forecasts that the British price cap will skyrocket and the average annual bill will reach £3,582 ($6,177) next month. By January, it predicts it will be £5,000 (almost $10,000) a year. No wonder Brits are furious.

And a fair degree of that fury rests on the fact that they have been lied to for the best part of 20 years.

You know, the usual rubbish about our ‘inevitable’ transition to an all wind and sun powered future bringing cheap and abundant electricity to all. An apparently easy sell, driven by the meme about the wind being ‘free’ and that the ‘sun’ is cheaper still. And yet, for some strange reason, every single country that has attempted to run on sunshine…

I strongly supportedBrexit in part because I wanted the United Kingdom to have both the leeway and the incentive to adopt pro-market policies.

Imagine my disappointment, then, when subsequent Conservative Prime Ministers did nothing (Theresa May) or expanded the burden of government (Boris Johnson).

Where was the reincarnation of Margaret Thatcher? Didn’t the Tory Party understand the need to restrain big government?

Perhaps my prayers have finally been answered. After jettisoning Boris Johnson (albeit for scandal rather than bad policy), the Tories elected Liz Truss to lead the nation.

And she appointed Kwasi Kwarteng to be Chancellor of the Exchequer (akin to U.S. Treasury Secretary). The two of them have just unveiled some major changes in U.K. fiscal policy.

Allister Heath’s editorial for the Telegraph has a celebratory tone.

…the best Budget I have ever heard a British Chancellor deliver, by a massive margin. The…

Power-starved Brits and Germans will soon tell you how important having power on demand truly is. And they’ll also tell you what it’s like to receive a power bill that you’ve absolutely no hope of paying.

After years of telling us how cheap and easy our inevitable transition to an all-wind and sun-powered future would be, with examples like Germany and Britain, the story is beginning to fall flat.

Rather than some brightly lit Nirvana, our wind and solar-powered future is looking more miserable by the day.

As they say in politics, the mob soon works you out.

Well, the number who have identified the scale and scope of the great renewable energy fraud is growing, and they’re growing angrier by the day. Something has to give.

Michael Shellenberger isn’t alone in his view that the days of the West’s obsession with wind and solar are numbered.

End Of Renewables…