Utopia, you are standing in it!

They must be hoping to bludgeon people into accepting the ‘climate neutral’ nonsense if they keep spouting it for long enough. Any government that says “you can’t fly anywhere on holiday any more” isn’t going to last long.

The UK cannot reach net zero before 2050 unless people stop flying and eating red meat, a report says.

But it warns that the British public do not look ready to take such steps and substantially change their lifestyle, says BBC News.

The report challenges the views of campaign group Extinction Rebellion.

The COP 26 climate jamboree has been and gone, and the BBC looks at some of the energy numbers as the UK government pursues its net zero obsession. One obvious and increasing problem is the erratic deficiency of wind and solar power at various times in every 24-hour period, requiring either massive, expensive energy storage capacity or acceptance of power gaps once gas power stations are removed from the system, or most likely both. Complaining about expensive gas, only to propose something yet more costly which doesn’t even generate its own power, lacks economic or any other sense. Nuclear is jogging along in the background but won’t be centre stage any time soon, if ever.
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The UK has committed to reduce its greenhouse-gas emissions to net zero by 2050, says BBC News.

Net zero is the point at which the country is taking as much of…

25 years have passed since the Labour election win of 1997, which preceded a plethora of constitutional changes, including partial reform of the House of Lords, devolution to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and the Human Rights Act. Tom Leeman summarises the contributions of three expert speakers (Professor Robert Hazell, Baroness (Shami) Chakrabarti and Lord (Charlie) Falconer of Thoroton) at a recent Unit event to mark the anniversary.

This year marked a quarter of a century since the victory of Tony Blair’s New Labour in the 1997 General Election on 1 May. Blair’s first government embarked upon a programme of constitutional reform, many elements of which, such as devolution, the Human Rights Act (HRA), and the status of hereditary peers in the Lords, still spark debate in the UK today.

To mark the anniversary and discuss the Blair government’s constitutional legacy the Unit convened an event with three…

A house of cards has more structural integrity than a power generation system that depends on sunshine and breezes. Australia’s unfolding renewable energy debacle is a case in point.

Total daily collapses solar output (aka ‘sunset’) and total collapses in wind power output (aka ‘calm weather’) are at the heart of a power pricing and supply calamity, with daily power rationing the new normal.

The massive subsidies to wind and solar were designed to destroy the profitability of reliable coal-fired generators, which they duly did.

The political brains trust and their apologists in the MSM have been railing against coal-fired power as “dirty” and the personification of “evil” for years now. And yet, when a coal-fired power plant takes one or two of its several generating units off-line for repairs or maintenance, the same mob howls ‘blue murder’, accusing the plant’s owners of an underhand conspiracy aimed at undermining the…

Context

After the death of Gnaeus Pompeius (Pompey) in September 48 BC, forces loyal to his cause (the ‘Pompeians’) rallied in north Africa (modern-day Tunisia). They were given support by King Juba of Numidia.

Caesar, arriving back in Rome from the East (whose pacification, starting in Egypt, moving through Syria and into Turkey, are described in The Alexandrine War), quelled a mutiny in Campania. He took steps to relieve debtors. Loyal followers were given rewards i.e. governorships and priesthoods. Some were enrolled in the senate to fill gaps. Repentant Pompeians were forgiven i.e. there was no bloodbath as under the dictators earlier in the century, Sulla or Marius.

At the very end of 47 BC Caesar was elected consul and sailed to Africa to defeat this last holdout of Pompeians. The Pompeian forces were led by Quintus Caecilius Metellus Scipio, along with Titus Labienus, Publius Attius Varus, Lucius Afranius…

The Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) has raised interest rates by just a quarter point, to 1.25 per cent. This was the fifth increase in as many meetings, but still leaves rates near historic lows. In my view, this was a mistake.

This decision is hard to square with April’s consumer price inflation figure of 9 per cent, or the Bank’s own expectations that the CPI measure will now top 11 per cent in October. Nonetheless, the MPC judged (by a majority of 6 to 3) that not enough had happened since it last met in May to justify a different pace of tightening.

To be fair, there were no ‘game changers’ in the latest economic data. The April GDP figures were a little weaker than expected and there are still few signs of the wage-price spiral that some fear. Against this, other indicators suggest that private sector…

Hot on the heels of the Democrat Party amping up the pressure on Supreme Court Justices over the anticipated overthrow of the current abortion SCOTUS rulings – with illegal protests (no arrests so far) outside the homes of selected Justices by “Ruth Sent Us” and multiple arson attacks on pregnancy centres across the country by “Jane’s Revenge” – comes this lovely little indicator of how the Democrats think when democracy doesn’t go their way:

“This is, in my opinion, a diseased Republican Party. And it needs to be cured and cleansed,” Houlahan said. “So the stakes of having a Republican, as an example, in my seat are more than just policy differences. They are democracy, in my opinion.”

Mmmmmm…. cleansing! Tasty, tasty cleansing.

Ms Houlahan won her competitive Pennsylvania seat in 2020 but is now facing strong headwinds for re-election thanks to Biden being underwater in her state, with…

Sunday is the final round of the four-round French election–two rounds for president, two for National Assembly. Thus the legislative runoffs are now upon us. Although we have the unusual case of a honeymoon election in which the leader of an opposition alliance is proclaiming he is running for prime minister, probably the only real question in the results is whether the just-reelected President Macron gets a assembly majority or not. (See earlier planting for discussion of such points.)

In advance of the runoffs, I been poking around in the statements (profession de foi) that candidates make available. It’s a great resource for anyone wanting study patterns in the way the candidates and parties/alliances communicate. I am not about to look at this systematically, but I note a few stark differences in presentation. (Most of the following is based on a comment by me at the earlier…