Utopia, you are standing in it!

Wind and solar generators happily take credit when the sun’s up and the wind’s blowing, but dodge all criticism when blackouts follow sunset and/or calm weather. The standard trick is to point in every direction – except the obvious – when power rationing (euphemistically called “demand management”) or unplanned power rationing (aka widespread blackouts) follows routine and unpredictable collapses in wind and solar output.

All care and no responsibility, renewable energy rent seekers then point the finger at coal and gas generators – where a few of their units are often offline for routine maintenance, or, if they suffer a breakdown, are repaired and up and running in a jiffy – and assert that the chaos was all their fault.

The line goes that wholesale prices spiked and/or power supplies were cut because a coal-fired or gas-fired generator failed to deliver X hundred MWs of power, cleverly ignoring the fact…

In yesterday’s presidential election in Colombia, the top two candidates were from the extremes of the political spectrum. Leading the pack is Gustavo Petro, a former guerrilla of the M-19 (which demobilized about thirty years ago and has been a political party, or component of various alliances, since). He won 40.3% of the vote. In second place is Rodolfo Hernández, with 28.2%. He is an outsider–having had only municipal political experience in a medium-sized city¹–and presents as Colombia’s Trump/Bolsonaro/Bukele. Or worse, as he is on record saying he admires Hitler.

Regular readers of this blog or followers of my published research will know I have always been skeptical of two-round majority election of presidents. And this Colombian runoff pairing is a perfect demonstration of why–sometimes reducing choices to two means a choice between two brands of poison. Consider the third-place candidate: Federico Gutiérrez, who finished just under five…

The Times recently (11 May 2022) reported that the Attorney General, Suella Braverman, had received, and given, legal advice to the effect that proposed government action in relation to the Northern Ireland Protocol was compatible with international law.  As I write, we have still not seen details of either the proposals or the legal arguments on which the government intends to rely.  What is going on?

First, it is unusual and unsatisfactory that the existence of this legal advice has been leaked. For one thing, unless the leak was authorised by the Attorney General herself, it looks like a breach of the Ministerial Code, paragraph 2.13 of which says:

The fact that the Law Officers [that is, the Attorney General, Solicitor General and Advocate General for Scotland] have advised or have not advised and the content of their advice must not be disclosed outside Government without their authority.

Note…

May 29, 1630 & 1660. On this date in 1630 the future Charles II, King of England, Scotland and Ireland is born. On this date in 1660 Charles II enters London on the Restoration of the British monarchy.

Charles II was the eldest surviving child of King Charles I of England, Scotland and Ireland and Henrietta Maria de Bourbon of France, the daughter of King Henri IV of France and Navarre and Marie de Medici.

Charles II had set out for England from Scheveningen, arrived in Dover on 25 May 1660 and reached London on 29 May, his 30th birthday and he was received in London to public acclaim.

Although Charles and Parliament granted amnesty to nearly all of Cromwell’s supporters in the Act of Indemnity and Oblivion, 50 people were specifically excluded. In the end nine of the regicides were executed: they were hanged, drawn and quartered, whereas others…