The Dumb-Dom effect:

Dominic Cummings is billed as Boris Johnson’s “idea’s” man. However there’s a problem, most of his ideas are sh*t. We need only look at the satellite fiasco, where they bought a company that makes the wrong kind of satellites for GPS. His track and trace app that didn’t work because of all spyware it came with. And his original plan for covid was herd immunity (i.e. let hundreds of thousands die to save Pret). And this is before we bring up his involvement with both the leave campaign, and the Scottish referendum, his connections to the Kremlin, nor his little trip to Bernard’s castle, which has produced a recognised “Cummings effect” that is in part responsible for a 2nd wave worse than the first wave.

I’ve heard Cummings and Boris compared somewhat unfavourably to pinky and the brain (the difference being that Cummings thinks he’s a genius… and he’s also insane). In truth, he hasn’t got a clue, he’s yet another point on the Dunning-Kruger scale. While yes at the extreme end you’ve got the likes of Trump, but a little further along we meet Cummings. And you could argue he proves that a little bit of intelligence (what I’m calling the Dumb-Dom point), combined with an overly inflated ego and an posh upbringing, can be a very dangerous thing.

Moscow Dom

Take for example defence, with word that Cummings has been visiting UK military facilities as part of a Tory spending review (yes, its considered ok to let someone with connections to Moscow into UK military bases, go figure). Although I should perhaps call it a what not to spend review. Already there’s rumours that the UK is going to cut out all of its Challenger 2 tanks and Warrior IFV’s and replace them with Cyber warfare. Ya, to Cummings the way we’ll stop Russian tanks rolling up the M2 is by having a team of nerds posting meme’s. Good luck with that one.

Cummings was also seen going into Downing street with a copy of a Reagan era letter related to defence research. As I mentioned in a prior post the Reagan administration funded all sorts of hair-brained schemes and squandered vast sums of public money in the process. Of course, unwilling to admit they’d made a mistake, republicans came up with the retroactive argument that ya we knew none of it would work, but we were trying to get the soviets to spend themselves into bankruptcy (in truth Russian military spending did not increase significantly during Reagan’s tenure, it was only 7% of their GDP and it was what was going on with the other 93% that was the problem).

Either way, the UK just doesn’t have the defence budget to finance these sorts of programmes. As I discussed in a prior post, previous efforts by the UK to compete with the major powers during the cold war failed, the TSR2 being a good example. Only with European co-operation can the UK hope to keep pace with the US and China. And a hard brexit is pretty much going to scupper that.

I’d also note that we need to factor in the UK’s geography. The whole reasoning behind trident (which is an American weapon system, one they can withhold support for and effectively disarm the UK…if say the UK were to break international law for example), is that anything else (no matter how advanced) is vulnerable to a sneak attack. This is less of a problem for Russia, China or the US as they can position their facilities well in land and they have vastly more conventional forces with which to guard them.

In some respects, I get the impression that Cummings and the Tories have latched onto a defence spending theory that basically says you don’t need conventional forces if you’ve got nukes. However, this is not true, it ignores certain geopolitical realities. It could leave you vulnerable to Salami tactics (where the enemy gradually weakens your position by engaging in a series of acts that would not constitute grounds for war, never mind threatening a nuclear attack), as this skit from the satire Yes Prime Minster discusses.

In reality its a choice between the UK having conventional forces, plus maybe trident as an optional extra. Or if you want to save money and cut military spending, then trident is the first thing you’d ditch. Its one or the other. But for the Tories trident is a phallic totem. If they give it up they will be abandoning their dreams of empire 2.0. Hence the conventional army must too be sacrificed on the high altar of brexit, even if this ultimately compromises the UK’s actual defences.

And we have to consider the international consequences of such a policy. Given that the Challenger 2 tanks are really more designed for large scale tank engagements (such as in the Middle Eastern deserts or the Fulda gap) even proposing to get rid of them could be interpreted as a signal that the UK will not be getting involved in such conflicts in future.

Now while that might actually be a good thing (no more being America’s lap dog), it could mean allies (such as the US) are less supportive (i.e. they take back their missiles). And enemies may decide to make a move against a UK ally (or nationalise a UK company’s holdings), as they will be assuming the UK will not take any action. This is pretty much what caused the Falklands war. Tory cuts to the Royal Navy convinced the Argentine Junta that the UK wouldn’t try to retake the island. And the UK almost lost that war (something even the British commanders have admitted), they only didn’t because the Junta hadn’t really planned very well for how they’d defend the Island (largely because they were so convinced the UK wouldn’t take any action!).

Hell, Cummings military policy is so bad it would only make sense if you were a Russian agent looking to deliberately sabotage the UK’s defences….oh wait!

Speaking of nukes….

Cummings has also proposed that we solve unemployment in northern England by building lots of nuclear reactors in the North (I didn’t know there were loads of unemployed nuclear engineers in northern England!). As I pointed out in a prior post one of the consequences of brexit on the energy industry is that it will make it harder to recruit new workers. Industries like nuclear or fracking will need EU workers to come in and make up for skill shortages.

So we have a load of working class communities in the north, who voted leave because they are xenophobic about foreigners and feel threatened by technology (as its reducing the number of blue collar jobs). And Cummings plan is to have a load of white collar workers move in, some of them from overseas (mostly from France & China for nuclear and Romania for fracking), pushing up house prices and living costs. How’s that going to go down? And leaving the EU means leaving Euroatom, who is going to certify and supply the fuel?

In all categories the UK’s readiness to manage its own nuclear industry post-brexit is still in category red

Also, nuclear projects take forever. Hinkley C was proposed in the 2000’s with construction starting 15 years later and power production will be a good ten years after that….so Cummings is proposing jobs in the 2030’s & 2040’s. By contrast we can start building renewable energy systems, council houses, hospitals, etc. tomorrow. But of course while the Tories will happily shell out a small fortune for anything nuclear (empire 2.0 and all that), but they won’t spend a penny on anything that might actually help people.

UK house building, most notably of social housing fell under Thatcher and has never really recovered, likely because home owning Tories prefer their to be an artificial shortage, pushing up prices and rents

Dot Dom bubble

And according to Cummings the real benefit of brexit is how the UK can become a hub for the next trillion dollar IT company, once we are free from burdensome EU regulations. Why is that all the big IT firms are set up in the US?

Well the thing is the UK WAS the centre of an IT revolution, back during the dot-com era of the late 2000’s, at the start of the Tony Blair government (the most pro-EU PM the country has probably ever had), when London and Dublin saw themselves at the centre of the European tech revolution. These were heady days. You could go to a “first Tuesday event”, put on a green badge (indicating you were an IT person looking for funding) or a red badge (indicating you were a venture capitalist) and do a deal for several million over a handshake and a glass of bubbly.

So what went wrong? The dot-com bubble burst. While silicon valley caught a cold, London came down with pneumonia. It boiled down to market size, the UK is a very small pond compared to the US. And back in 2000 not everyone had access to the internet in the UK (or the EU for that matter) and many that did were still using dial up (which made internet shopping tediously slow). The end result was that while Amazon made enough money to keep the wolf from its door, its UK competitors (boo.com or handbag.com) went bankrupt.

And this still applies today. After the US, the other major hub for IT companies these days is China, which is got to be the most un-libertarian country in the world. They are practically taking tips and pointers out of black mirror episodes. Yet, they have far more IT companies in China than in the UK or the EU and they may well overtake the US in this field. Why? One billion people with mobile phones. How exactly Cummings thinks that shrinking the UK’s potential market is going to help I do not know.

Case in point, Ireland wasn’t as badly effected by the dot-com bubble as the UK. It took a wallop yes, but weathered the storm a lot better. This is because Ireland had focused more on the hardware side of things. There was a big drop in demand for computer parts after the millennium, but the market soon recovered. And this was largely driven by demand from the rest of the EU, to which Ireland could export tariff free, thanks to the expanding single market.

And contrary to what Cummings says, the problem in London back in 2000 (then again he was in Russia at the time) is it became a bit of a wild west. A lot of the dot com firms were operating fairly dubious business models, some were badly run and government oversight was lacking (as the Blair government was terrified of the “old labour” label and would run a million miles if the tabloids brought that up). The aforementioned Boo.com being a good example. This meant a whole generation of investors got burned and swore off tech investments for some time.

Boo.com demonstrated everything that was wrong with dot.com “unicorns” in the early 2000’s, and serves as a case study in why investors need to do due diligence on tech stocks

And how does Cummings propose to get around this? Why we use UK government money to found and start these tech “unicorns“. Well firstly, tech start ups are pretty risky investments. A lot of them are just regular companies who call themselves a “tech” stock to attract money from moron’s who don’t know any better (like Cummings!). And, like during the dot com bubble, some have fairly dubious business models. Its questionable if this is sensible use of taxpayers money (particularly if we are so hard up we can’t afford to fully fund the NHS!).

Secondly, he does know that, as part of the EU, UK firms and universities were part of many collaborative projects which benefited from matching EU funding (a sort of public private partnership), which the UK used to do very well out of. Indeed any money the government comes up with will struggle to plug the gap. The only difference is, the EU was very careful about who they gave money too. While the Dumb-Dom approach is, to throw bags of cash at anyone who can bamboozle Cummings & Boris with a flashy presentation.

Again one is forced to conclude that Cummings proposals would only make sense if you were a foreign agent attempting to sabotage the UK economy.

The failed state of Dumb-Dom

Finally, one has to acknowledge the undemocratic nature of how Johnson and Cummings operate. The whole point of democracy is so that any proposed idea gets subject to proper scrutiny. Politicians, from both sides of the house, are allowed to ask awkward questions and seek professional guidance as well as public opinion. There have been plenty of other times in the past where a government has proposed something that would be a really bad idea, which has been killed off once its been subject to proper due diligence.

However, instead the UK government now operates under a model whereby a small cabal come up with policies (that may well be unworkable, illegal, break international law or squander public money), there is no scrutiny or due diligence, no bidding process. And anyone who asks awkward questions (even if you are an expert, or a Tory MP who voted leave) is accused of being “an enemy of the people” and a remoaner for daring to suggest we should like you know read the bill before voting on it.

If you ever wondered how totalitarian regimes can get away with say, building a gold statue of the leader that always faces the Sun, this is how. Their policies, like Cummings, aren’t subjected to any sort of rational scrutiny or oversight, which is why these countries tend to be poorer. Hence Cumming’s risks turning the UK into a failed state.

But fortunately for us (and unfortunately for Cummings), you live by the sword you die by it. Sooner or later he will be forced out of office (either Boris will be forced to sack him, or Boris will be forced out and Cummings will follow). And the new PM will immediately issue instructions to cancel or reverse everything Cummings. Anyone he employed will either be sacked or re-organised (put in charge of stationary supplies or made cultural attaché to North Korea).

Much like how the golden statues of dictators can be airbrushed out of history, so too can Cumming’s legacy. And while a Tory government probably won’t reverse brexit, its entirely possible that a future labour one (or an independent Scottish one) will do so.

A closer estimate on nuclear energy cost options

I stumbled across a tool from the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientist, which purports to calculate the full cycle cost of nuclear energy. While it has its limitations, I think does highlight a few interesting points.

Figure 1: The Bulletin of Atomic Scientist (BoAS) costs, baseline & adjusted with various options compared to DoE estimates for renewables & fossil fuels

Firstly, the baseline cost they suggest for nuclear power works out at about a LCOE of $ 84.4 per MWh (the site quotes in cents per kWh, however, I’m converting to $/MWh because its what we usually use when quoting LCOE’s). This is a bit less than the DOE’s estimate of $95/MWh for nuclear. The DOE also quotes costs of $74/MWh for wind, $125/MWh for solar. By 2022 they expect costs in the range of $96/MWh for nuclear, $74/MWh for solar, $56/MWh for wind, with gas and coal between $54/MWh and $196/MWh depending on future prices and whether or not we are sequestering the carbon. Recall we are talking in terms of LCOE so this accounts for the intermittent nature of some renewables.

So first off this would suggest that nuclear might be competitive with coal, if there’s efforts to force CCS on the industry (i.e. no Trump, no climate change denial) and if fossil fuel prices go up. But that’s lot of if’s. It also suggests that nuclear isn’t competitive against renewables, and even if it is, that window is about to close. Indeed, we can use the Bulletin tool to get a better estimate on its current price, given that the cost of the Hinkley C project is known….well it will probably go up, but we at least have some ball park figure. The latest estimate for its overnight cost is £22.3 billion, which is $28.7 bn so that’s $8,696 per installed kWe, and its going to take 10 years and we assume 40% efficiency. So running that through our model gives a figure of $134/MWh, or about £104.6/MWh. You will immediately notice that this is well above the strike price of £92.5/MWh, suggesting that Hinkley C is going to lose money with every kWh it generates.

Figure 2: UK new nuclear costs (E/MWh) compared to various renewable energy options [Source: The energy transition.de, 2015]

And by comparison at a recent strike price auction agreed to a price of £57.7 per MWh (approximately $76/MWh) for offshore wind. One of the arguments in favour of Hinkley C was that the high costs of off shore wind, even though many experts warned the government at the time that this would likely be wiped out by future advances in offshore wind technology (which was at a very early stage of development when Hinkley C was first proposed, the widely held assumption is that the price of offshore wind would fall rapidly, as indeed it has).

So okay, we’ve proved Hinkley C is a crap sandwich, well I think we all knew that one already. What I think is interesting about this tool is what happens when you start playing with the settings. For example, if we increase the efficiency of our nuclear reactor from the baseline of 33% (again industry standard for new build reactors would be closer to 40% these days) to 55% (the best you could possibly hope to get with a Brayton cycle) you only cut the cost of electricity by 2%. This confirms a point I made some time ago, there is no point spending a lot of money on some super expensive Brayton cycle kit, greatly increasing the construction costs only to make a tiny improvement in the plant’s electricity output.

However, if we decrease the capacity factor of our plant, from a baseline of 90% to say 70%, the price goes up by 25%. Pull it down to 60% the price goes up to +50% of the baseline price and at a capacity factor of 50% we are paying 74% more for our electricity. Its is often argued that nuclear can operate without any form of backup, but this ignores how grids work. But everything needs back up not least because demand is not constant all of the time. In the absence of storage, there will be times when some plants will see their capacity fall significantly. Load following power plants will typically operate at between 70-50% capacity factor, while peaking power plants can be less than 50%. At such cost levels it would simply be more economic to build energy storage than add more nuclear plants…so why not just do the same thing with renewables and save some money?

The model doesn’t appear to consider the costs of decommissioning or the clean up costs of fixed infrastructure related to the nuclear fuel cycle, which is something of an oversight. Keep in mind those costs aren’t small, its currently costing more to decommission some nuclear plants than it cost to build them. Including the costs of decommissioning Selafield the UK’s current bill is about £117 billion. That said, it is difficult to quantify this down to the level of an individual plant or MWh.

Figure 3: UK Nuclear decommissioning costs breakdown

What they are able to do is estimate the spent fuel storage costs. Doubling the cost of that (as high as it will go) only increases the cost per MWh by 2%. Now okay, as noted there’s a whole raft of things we are leaving out. But even so, it does suggest that its not a linear relationship between clean up costs and electricity costs. There is a fixed cost we are stuck with regardless (i.e. even if we abandoned nuclear energy tomorrow, much of that bill would still have to be paid) and some small amount for every reactor year beyond that.

However, and here’s where it gets interesting, if we switch from the once thro fuel cycle to the fast reactor based full recycle option, the baseline price jumps by 64% to a whopping $139/MWh. And again, this baseline model, isn’t really accurate. For example, it assumes a capacity factor for the fast reactor of 90%, something that no FBR has ever achieved (most struggle to exceed 40%, the best is closer to 60%). Putting in more accurate values for both the LWR and FBR costs and performance, we get a price of $264/MWh.

Figure 4: Estimated fuel inventories for different nuclear energy options, MOX reprocessing or fast reactor reprocessing means a modest reduction in HLW in exchange for a significant increase in LLW [UCUSA, 2014]

This confirms one of the arguments I’ve long made, fast reactors make no sense, unless you are allergic to money! They’ll end up greatly increasing the costs of nuclear electricity to well past the point where anyone would be willing to pay for it. Yes once-thro does mean throwing away most of the fissile material, but the cost of recovering that material is simply too high. This was essentially the conclusion of both the 2011 MIT report into the nuclear fuel cycle and the Harvard study of 2003. The only situation where either report thought fast reactors (or Thorium) would make the slightest sense would be if renewable costs failed to drop as predicted, energy costs skyrocketed and the cost of uranium soared. None of those have happened, in fact the opposite has happened in all three cases.

Finally, the baseline Bulletin model suggests that using the MOX recycle route will cost $227.5/MWh, although its closer to $254/MWh (£196/MWh) for my “adjusted” model. Some nuclear advocates see MOX recycling as a happy compromise. Yes, we know the fast reactor route isn’t really viable on a technical level, but we can at least get some reuse out the fuel rods via the MOX route and save some money in the process. Well this model suggest no, that’s not the case. Indeed, it suggests that for the UK we’ll be paying more than double the strike price for every kWh of Hinkley’s electricity. And when I say “we” keep in mind that at least half of those costs are being met by the taxpayer not EDF. Indeed, given that the strike price amounts to a subsidy rate of 68% per kWh (paid for by UK bill payers), the actual cost to EDF will be closer to 15% of the cost per MWh of Hinkley….and that still might be enough to break them!

So this model seems to confirm what I’ve heard from one or two in the nuclear industry, who see MOX as the hill on which the nuclear industry is going to die on. As they see it, if and when the dead certificate for nuclear power is written, we won’t be listing “Greenpeace” or “Hinkley” as the cause of death, no it will be “suicide by MOX”. Most of the spiralling costs we associate with nuclear are often those associated with MOX reprocessing (if you think Hinkley is bad, look up the fiasco of Throp or Rokkasho sometime!). Most of the recent accidents have been related to MOX reprocessing and most of the main flash points with protestors are MOX fuel shipments. In short MOX fuel reprocessing is a supersized crap sandwich with a side salad of BS. If the nuclear industry is to have any future this madness has to stop and MOX plants need to close and let us never talk of it again.

So all in all, what this model does show is that the nuclear industry does have some problems. But some of the proposed solutions doing the rounds e.g. making plants more efficient, building them quicker or smaller, FBR’s, MOX or alternative fuel cycles, they don’t make a lot of sense as regards the economics of nuclear energy. In many cases these would actually increase the cost of nuclear energy not reduce it. As I’ve pointed out before, the business model of the industry, that of large LWR’s with once thro fuel processing, might not look great, but there is a reason why the industry has stuck with it since the 70’s. And that because the alternatives are so much worse.

Non Rio news

Brexit guarantee

Reacting to the wide scale dismay over possible funding cuts, the UK government has committed about £6 billion a year to guarantee post-EU funding in areas such as farming and scientific research. But critics argue it doesn’t go far enough. Indeed, I would argue its very worrying as it suggests the government simply does not get the message.

The UK receives billions in research funding from the EU

Take research funding. A clause in the government guarantee implies it only applies to research funding contracts signed before the autumn statement comes out. Given that many of those grants went in the bin on the 24th of June it is highly unlikely they could be resurrected between now and then. That’s not how academia works.

For UK farmers subsidies are their main source of income

I’ve been quite busy the last week with resit exam marking, I’ve got viva resits coming up and the start of term. It would be mid-October before I or anyone else in academia could get around a table. And it would then take a few weeks or months for the EU to then okay everything. Keep in mind most of the EU research at risk involves collaborative research projects, across multiple states, so even with Brexit it will involve the EU. And typically the EU will only provide a portion of the funds, we then source the rest from private industry. Naturally the private sector, worried about the economic impact of Brexit might still say no.

And what about freedom of movement? A leave supporting MP only recently realised Brexit might leave EU citizens in limbo, nah you think! If I need to recruit a PhD student or a Research Assistant with a specific and narrow set of skills, its questionable if I can do that if I’m only restricted to the UK. Any doubt about my ability to recruit and the other partners (public and private) in the EU will still be asking me to take my name off the application. The fact that the government doesn’t realise any of this just shows you how out of touch they are.

More importantly this announcement more or less confirms what I’d warned before the referendum. That you can forget about that £350 million a month. The UK will still need to pay the EU for access to the single market. Keep in mind Norway pays something like 90% per capita of what they UK pays, we’ll suffer the drop in tax revenue that comes with leaving the EU (due to reduced trade) and we have to come up with several billion more a year extra too.

In short the UK is already worse off and we’ve not even got to the tricky parts of the negotiations yet (where we have to agree to call Cheddar “reconstituted lard” and English wine as “Du Vin Roast beef”).

China warns the UK over Hinkley C

The Chinese have issued a strongly worded warning to the UK over the threat to the Hinkley C deal. As always, this goes way beyond a simple nuclear power plant. It shows what sort of pressures the UK will face post-Brexit.

China unveil’s its prototype reactor at Hinkley point

Leave campaigners, will argue that they can get a trade deal quicker off other countries than the EU can, which often takes years or decades to negotiate a deal. This is true, in much the same way I could buy a car tomorrow in ten minutes flat….if I didn’t mind going to a dodgy Arthur Daley type and taking whatever cut and shut banger he offered! Getting a good deal means haggling and much arm twisting. The EU can do this because they are one of the world’s largest collective economy’s. The UK can’t because the Chinese (or US) will have the UK over a barrel. Its their way or the highway.

Hence, I suspect Hinkley C will still go ahead, regardless. Its an offer the British can’t refuse.

Leave turf war

Speaking of international trade, there’s a bit of a turf war going on between Boris Johnson and Liam Fox. Both argue that they are entitled to negotiate future international trade agreements. I’m wondering if Theresa May has, rather ghoulishly, taken a leaf out of Hitler’s book. In that he would often put people he didn’t like in departments with overlapping responsibilities and then sit back and watch them squabble.

In short one has to wonder if a number of the Brexiter’s are being set up to fail. Hence when the article 50 business is kicked into the long grass and ignored until after the next election, nobody can complain, and its the Brexit camp who will get the blame.

Norwegian…based in Ireland?

I travelled to Scandinavia over the summer. One thing that I found surprising to learn that the budget airline Norwegian is flagged in Ireland. Why? Well simple, because Ireland is in the EU. Norwegian has big plans to expand across the Atlantic and they know how protective the US is of its businesses (land of the free…but only if you contribute to my congressional campaign!).

Norwegian Airlines…..flagged in Ireland

Indeed the Americans have raised concerns about how European budget airlines operate. Its also alleged that Norwegian plan on using air crews hired in from Asia for its Transatlantic operations. While I would tend to agree, budget airlines are pushing things a bit too far, but this is clearly a case of the pot calling the kettle black. American airlines have become notorious for squeezing the margins and pushing their pilots way too hard. There have in fact been several air crashes in the US that are blamed on pilot fatique.

So the reality is, all of this is just excuses, because the Americans realise that Norwegian is the thin end of the wedge. What they really fear is Ryanair bringing its not inconsiderable network and low cost model across the Atlantic (they have plans to do so, although they are currently on hold) and driving their airlines out of business. Who knows, if Michael O’Leary has his way, American cabin crew might have to stop being so rude and bossy to passengers!

But obviously the point is that if Norwegian wasn’t based in the EU, the Americans would have just told them to hit the road. But because they are based in an EU country, they have to at least negotiate. This explains the dilemma faced by Easyjet. Its probable that Ryanair will follow Norwegian and expand into the US market. Easyjet will face the choice of being a short haul British based company (hoping that any restrictions on migrant and travel doesn’t mean a dwindling market share). Or leave the UK, likely register in Ireland themselves, and become an international airline.

Yes, Ireland a nation of 4.5 million could well have more airlines in a few years time than the UK a nation 11 times larger! All thanks to Brexit.

When the generations fall out

An interesting article I came across regarding baby boomers, from another blogger. They enjoy a remarkably good deal. Many managed to buy a large house before such things became expensive, they’ve retired on a final salary pension in their 60’s, when most younger generations (or the generation before them) retired on a less generous settlement later….if at all! And a triple lock on their pensions, plus the ring fencing of certain elements of the NHS budget means they’ve been spared the harsh austerity the rest of society has had to endure.

And to cap it all we have the Brexit vote, where baby boomers overwhelmingly voted to leave, a final two fingered salute to succeeding generations. Indeed, its worth noting that baby boomers are also the worst generation for environmental damage and the most likely generation to be climate change deniers…..and likely to be Trump voters.

In short, there’s a very serious risk of the generations falling out. Many of those flocking to labour and Corybn are young (and angry) millennials. While its unlikely they will win this time around, as the baby boomers die off, its inevitable that the younger generations will gain control and suffice to say there will be a day of reckoning.

Recall, as I pointed out in a prior article Brexit does complicate matters as far as national debt. Any default or “haircut” on national debts will hit pensioners, baby boomers in particular very hard. Many could see their income wiped out. The chances that the millennials will see their incomes squeezed yet further to pay off these debts (run up paying for baby boomers cosy life style and a failure of past governments to tax baby boomers more while they were working), after this generational betrayal, its slim to none.

Italian banks

And speaking of which, the trigger event for a sequence of sovereign debt defaults could be about to strike. There’s been further concerns expressed about the health of Italian banks. Italy is at risk of economic turmoil if a referendum goes against the government.

Now any Brexiters who feel smug and say this is why we need to get out of the EU, well no. The entire global economy is interconnected. If Italian banks go down and risk bringing down Italy, the impact will be felt worldwide. And its pensions and savers in the UK who will have to take a hit.

Ultimately, the world’s governments will face a difficult choice, bailout Italy (not an easy thing), or risk a contagion of debt spreading through the whole economy. A default of Italy would of course leave investors worrying about who is next and whether “safe as the bank of England” is really that safe. Which could make things very difficult for governments dependant on credit (such as the UK).

First contact?

Another interesting story revolves around a mystery object exo-planet hunters have discovered. They’ve concluded there’s something odd about a star some 1,000 light years from Earth. Some are arguing that it could be signs of an alien mega structure known as a Dyson’s Swarm. While unlikely, the very fact its being seriously considered is of interest (no scientists wants to be a member of the “I saw a flare” club, so they won’t announce this unless they’ve evidence to back that up). Its good to know there might be intelligent life in the universe…because there’s bugger all down her on Earth!

Trump’s minions

How can you not mention Trump, he’s like a sort of virus. However its more his minions that I want to talk about. Being a spokesman for the cult of Trump has got to be a pretty awful job (worth seeing Trevor Noah’s take on this here). Your boss says the most insane batshit crazy stuff, you have to try and row back on it, no he didn’t say that…..okay he did (after being confronted with a video of him saying it), but that’s not what he was trying to say….Only, for Trump to come out and reverse course again two minutes later. Its likely he’s killed the career of Rudy Giuliani, Chris Christie and Newt Gingrich.

However, another tactic of Trump’s minions is to try and out Trump Trump. Take his chief Spokesperson Katrina Pierson. She’s an ex-Tea party candidate who proved to be a little too crazy even for the tea party (she’s wears a necklace….made from bullets!). She’s regularly gone beyond Trump in craziness, recently blaming the US invasion of Afghanistan on Obama (leaving TV journalists speechless). When the insanity of what she was suggesting was pointed out, she tried to blame her microphone (an excuse both she and Trump have used in the past…perhaps we should start a kickstarter fund for her and Trump to buy a hearing aid?).

And Trump has recently announced changes to his campaign team. His campaign chief Paul Manafort, under pressure over payments to him linked to Putin, has been pushed aside. Instead Trump’s brought in the boss of Breitbart (a man referred too as “the most dangerous political operator in America”) and allegedly also ex-Fox News chief Roger Ailes. Which incidentally does raise some awkward questions as to what was going on over at Fox News during that whole Trump v’s Megyn Kelly saga (keeping in mind, Ailes was Meygn’s boss).

One has to worry what sort of fruitcake’s Trump will dig up to form his cabinet, in the increasingly unlikely event of him being elected. Its no wonder some are arguing that Trump doesn’t actually want to be president, he only did it to further his TV career and is now deliberately sabotaging his own campaign.

Let me draw you a picture

One of the problems with climate change deniers is that they will waffle along, making spurious contrarian claims at such a rate one can’t debunk them all, or quote misleading information (often doctored or deliberately misinterpreted). In a recent debate in Australia Brian Cox managed to outwit climate denier and member of the neo-fascist “One Nation”, Malcolm Roberts, by bringing along a graph of the data that he claimed didn’t exist.

Naturally this led Mr denier to claim the data, collected by NASA, was “doctored”, leading Brian Cox to question Roberts whether he also believed NASA hadn’t landed on the moon. While this might seem a bit of an unfair jibe, but as I’ve pointed out before the idea that dozens of agencies around the world, universities, NASA, ESA, the Met Office, the Tyndall centre, Scripp’s institute, the US military, etc. could all independently conduct studies (often relying on different data sets gathered in different ways) and reach the same conclusion. This leaves one only one of two alternatives, a) the evidence supporting climate change is rock solid, or b) all of these agencies worldwide are engaged in one massive global conspiracy, that makes faking the moon landing seem simple. So if you believe the climate data is doctored, then it is legitimate to question whether said individual is a tinfoil hat wearing conspiracy theorist.

Also deniers need to realise that they’ve been “found out”. The website “Skepticalscience.com” now has an easy to browse list of many prominent climate contrarians, listing their favoured climate myth and the information to debunk them. They also have a complete list of all climate denier myths along with the counter arguments, filed at a range of different levels (e.g. a simple quick explanation, or the hard scientific one). So in truth all you need to do to combat a climate denier these days is have a smart phone or I-pad and this website open on it.

The Consequences of Brexit

I was away on holiday during the vote, I mean I go away for 3 weeks and you lot exit the EU, WTF! Oddly enough I was outside the EU in Norway, basking in land of milk and honey the leave camp promised us?…well actually no.

The Norwegians couldn’t understand why Britain left the EU. They have to pay to be a member of the EEA (one of them was moaning to me about its considerable costs) yet not gain any of the benefits of being an EU member. The main reason why Norway is not in the EU boils down to fisheries. Not because they fear EU regulations, actually they feel the EU doesn’t regulate fisheries enough.

But at least the Norwegians have control over their borders right? No! There are more migrants per capita in Norway than in the UK, about 25% more in fact and they are arriving at a much faster rate than in the UK (nearly 3 times higher per capita faster). At one point (keeping in mind I was in rural areas, small fishing villages, not major towns) I was on a bus, the driver was Chechen, there were several middle eastern gentlemen (who got off at a fish factory, where clearly they were working), quite a few Chinese (and with the prams and shopping bags, I’m guessing they were locals), some tourists like me and perhaps one or two actual Norwegians.

And Switzerland has double the number of migrants per capita that Norway has. The only EEA, non-EU country that has a lower number of migrants than the UK is Iceland (which is only marginally lower). Which probably has less to do with Iceland’s migration policy and everything to do with the name of your country including the word “Ice” in it (hence, migrants tend to give it a wide berth fearful they’ll freeze to death or be eaten by a polar bear). So unless the Brexiters are proposing to rename the UK “Icebergland” or “Monster Island”, its unlikely this will have any impact on migration.

And already a number of the predictions and warnings are starting to come true, the pound has plunged in value, the stock markets were down $2 trillion in just 48 hrs, trading in certain shares was actually suspended at one point. Inflation is likely to rise, food prices will go up and many of those retiree’s and people on low incomes who voted leave will soon themselves considerably worse off and baring the brunt of consequences (as predicted).

Immediately I felt this effect as it meant everything started becoming more expensive. Room’s I’d booked a few days earlier suddenly rose in price rapidly. It was like living in Zimbabwe. I was in a queue waiting to change the last of my Kronor’s in Oslo airport, reading the news when I saw the story about the UK being downgraded by all 3 of the major rating’s agencies, so when I was asked which currency I’d like my money back in I said euro’s, rather than pounds.

Dirty rotten scoundrels – Project Betrayal

On his way out the door Cameron said that the leave camp had a lot to live up to, by which he meant all the insane lies and promises they made prior to the vote. Well less than 24 hrs after the vote they were breaking every single promise made. Apparently they never promised the NHS £350 million a week, despite driving around on a bus with that written on it.

Nor indeed will there be any changes to immigration law, because there’s no proof anyone voted leave due to fears over….despite the leave camp stirring up racial hatred for months (to the point where an MP got murdered). After all if Britain applies such restrictions to other EU states, they’d reply by doing the same to Britain in turn (which would lead to many ex-pats from the UK being forced to return home, and millions of them coming back in all at once would make any current issues regarding migrations seem pretty small).

And fishermen have been warned to expect no increases in allowed catches. Indeed, the experts have been warning of over fishing for years, post-Brexit the expert advise would probably by for a complete halt to all fishing in UK waters for a few years.

To EEA or not to EEA?

The crucial question the markets are asking is whether or not the UK will now go for a “Norway model” of EEA membership. This would give the UK access to the single European market and involve the least amount of disruption to the economy.

However, as noted earlier this represents pretty poor value for money. The UK would still essentially have to pay the EU for the privilege (Norway pays 83% of what we pay now), most of those pesky EU laws the leave camp were hammering on about would remain in place, only now the UK gets no say in any future changes to said laws (our EU parliament members are essentially replaced by fax machine in Whitehall through which future EU dictates will be received and implemented with question). And crucially there will have to be a commitment to free movement of people, the Germans have been pretty clear about that one.

The only reason Norway and Iceland accept these terms (rather than just go the whole hog and join the EU) is because of issues regarding fisheries (as noted), while the Swiss worry about the EU trying to arrest all its bankers and money launderers, if they became a member. So these countries accept these conditions for very specific reasons.

Yes there will be some changes. Much like other EEA countries, EU citizens coming over will have to fill in a few forms, it becomes a bit easier to deny them benefits (until they start working and paying taxes of course). But once they’ve been here long enough it will make no difference in real terms, just more bureaucracy (which of course UK tax payers will be paying for of course). The likelihood is that the result will be (as noted) no decrease in migration. Indeed in certain scenarios it could lead to an increase in migration, as minorities in the EU who currently can’t apply for asylum in the UK will gain that right.

The UK will also be able to pick and chose to keep certain elements of legislation its adopted from the EU. And the main two areas where they will be able to effect change are employment law and the environment. In short, its likely the Tories will now gut employment laws and remove many of the rights and protections that workers, particularly low income workers. have long relied on. By voting for Brexit they have now voted to remove the laws that say, stops you being fired by your boss just because you got sick or insisted on wearing a safety harness to stop you falling to your death. And forget about asking for Christmas day off to be with your family, or for overtime pay.

As for the environment, its now likely the laws here will also be gutted. Its now questionable, if not very improbable that the UK will remain committed to its the promises made during the Paris climate conference. Siemens has already announced it is freezing all wind farm development in the UK. Its also been warned that the £20 billion in new energy infrastructure the UK now needs to keep the lights on may not be build in time. Warnings have also been raised about further delays or a cancellation of Hinkley C.

Rise of UKIP?

Now while the markets, private industry and quite a few in the Tory party are quite happy to push back from the table and take EEA membership as the least worse option, this is very different from the “milk and honey” promises made during the referendum. Of the leave camp people, I can count using my thumbs the number who voted leave for reason other than immigration. Many of the Brexit voters, once they realise they’ve been conned on a massive scale, will probably not accept those terms and probably drive for something else. Of course they won’t get it, but they’ll try. As Paul Mason puts it:

“What happens when the investment banks move to Frankfurt, the carmakers to Hungary, the offshore finance wizards to Dublin, the tech companies to newly independent Scotland? What happens when, instead of Poles, it is poor white English people herded into the polytunnels of Kent to pick strawberries for union-busting gangmasters?”

But if the Tories think they’ve killed off UKIP, think again. My guess is that whoever emerges from the Tory leadership contest will go to the EU, sign away Britain’s sovereignty in exchange for EEA access, leave the country worse off than it was before. There will be (as noted) no specific immigration restrictions.

UKIP will ignore the reasoning behind this (reason and logic aren’t exactly their strong points) and they will respond to this complete betrayal of every promise made during the referendum by campaigning at the next election on a platform for tearing up any EEA agreement and “shutting the border”. They’ll promise a points system (which as I’ve discussed before, won’t work and ignores certain fundamental facts such as the fact that Canada or Australia don’t apply their points system to their immediate neighbours), and much other silliness. Inevitably they’ll pick up some significant portion of the leave vote and likely split the Tory vote.

In essence all Cameron will have done is guarantee that his warring party will now struggle to ever get a majority in future. They will only ever be able to form coalition governments with either the lib dem’s, labour, or if desperate UKIP.

Labour unity?

Now is the time for labour to take advantage of the political chaos in the Tory party, rise above events and cease the moment…..if they weren’t at war with themselves! Okay, Corbyn could have been a bit more active during the referendum campaign, but to blame him for Brexit is simply not fair. The blame lies squarely with Cameron. Like everything else he screwed it up, holding it at a time of year when the turnout from young voters would be low (as they won’t be at term time addresses, or working, or at Glastonbury) and millions of Brits abroad or EU citizens who’ve lived here all of their lives were excluded from the vote.

But such is the labour party’s hatred for their own leader, he can’t do anything right. If he rescued a baby from a burning building, half his team would quit on grounds that he was anti-fire, mocking man’s greatest invention while taking jobs away from hard working firemen.

A labour leadership battle now could not be more ill-timed. And the balance of probability is, either Corbyn will emerge victorious (once the party faithful have another vote) or someone else from the hard left of the party will take over in his place. Granted, labour’s changes at the next election are better with a centrist in charge, but a leaderless, warring labour party has no chance.

Scotland?

As expected, the SNP have suggested a 2nd referendum on Scottish independence is now very likely. 63% of Scot’s voted to stay in the EU, in parts of Edinburgh, the remain vote was as high as 78%. And as also expected, opinion polls are starting to show a lead for independence. A recent poll post-EU referendum suggests a whopping 27% lead to independence, although previous polls suggest a smaller lead.

It would make sense for the SNP to delay any independence vote for as long as possible. Let the economic bad news build, let more of the leave camp realise that they’ve been betrayed and conned by the Tory party, then when the country is nice and angry, call the referendum. While I was minded to support independence last time (but critical of the SNP), but I guessed it probably won’t pass. This time., I’m not so sure. Like I said, it will boil down to timing.

And Sturgeon shows every sign of playing it cool this time. She’s been in talks with Gibraltar, Northern Ireland and even the London mayor about some sort of plan to keep these regions in the EU, but perhaps still in the UK. I’m not entirely sure how that would work, but by going through the motions she can claim that she at least tried.

She’s also talking to the EU directly (having already been in talks with the Irish) and will be meeting with the EU president shortly. And some of the murmurs coming out of Brussels suggest she made find a sympathetic ear.

If Scotland can get some sort of deal from the EU, either an option to leave the UK and stay in the EU (unlikely, but worth a shot), or some sort of fast track framework to EU membership (keep in mind, leaving the UK will take a few years anyway) then that could dramatically change the outcome of any 2nd Independence referendum. A narrow chance of a Yes suddenly becomes a near certainty.

Currency is an issue too, as it was a key factor last time. I would hope this time the SNP have the sense not to propose keeping the pound, which is falling in value and probably not a very safe bet. Some sort of “Denmark model” for a future Scottish pound is a possibility. It would be pegged to the euro initially (until an independent Scotland is able to find its own feet), then later allowed to float more freely. This would be a much more sellable option that all the if’s and possibly maybe’s from last time.

In short, by England voting for Brexit an independent Scotland looks a lot more likely.

United Ireland?

And in Northern Ireland too, Sinn Fein are already seeking a border poll on uniting the Island. Of all the regions in the UK, Northern Ireland will suffer the worst from Brexit. They have to compete against a Republic of Ireland where taxes are lower, our GDP is higher (so people have more money to spend), we have better infrastructure, more third level graduates, access to the eurozone and now post-Brexit the single market too. Ask yourself if you were setting up a company on the Island of Ireland, which side of the border would you set up in?

Its worth keeping in mind that Brexit puts the northern Ireland peace process under threat. The lack of border controls, means any attempt to impose any kind of immigration restrictions on EU citizens in the UK will be impossible. All a Polish guy will need to do is get a cheap Ryanair ticket to Dublin, hop on a bus (there are buses direct from the airport) and he’ll be driven straight to Belfast city centre.

Any sort of tariff’s will result in smuggling, which means more money going towards terrorist groups up in the North (this was sort of the whole point in doing away with border controls, eliminate a key flash point!). Putting border controls at northern Ireland ports would be unprecedented (and probably unworkable given the shear volume of traffic they handle). I know of no other country that has border posts within its own national boundaries. They effects on the Northern Irish trade would be considerable, and inevitably drive more towards voting for a united Island.

So the Good Friday agreement will have to be renegotiated and you can bet what Sinn Fein’s demands will now be. Certainly opinion polls, all taken prior to the EU vote I might add, do suggest no appetite for a united Ireland. Even among Northern Ireland Catholic’s its questionable if you’d get a majority. However, I suspect that given time this will change.

It is often forgotten that the silent majority of Northern Irish people are neither strongly unionist, nor republican. They just want to get along and keep their job. Naturally if this majority now start losing jobs, start see their mortgages and living costs rising, then those poll numbers will start to shift and eventually you will probably find that a majority voting for a united Ireland isn’t that unlikely.

Interestingly there’s been a huge rush for Irish passports since Brexit. Being Irish (which fortunately I am) is a sort of post-Brexit hack. You have all the rights of British citizenship, but are also an EU citizen. The Irish passport office is starting to complain about the shear volume it now needs to process. Potentially 6 million in the UK could apply (that’s nearly 10% of the population!).

Certainly one has to say, as I’ve been saying for years, a UK outside of the EU might well mean an end to the UK. Hence why UKIP should really call themselves the UK destruction party.

Indeed, a complete break up of the UK isn’t that unlikely. I don’t think it will happen soon, but it may well now be a medium term inevitability. One could argue that the UK is a pact based on the understanding that the England will not allow overt English nationalism to do anything that would harm the interests of the non-English minorities within the UK. If you take the view that that contract was just torn up on the 23rd, then the pact that has allowed the UK to exist is broken and its very possible the different parts of the UK will eventually go their separate ways.

I mean, even some in London are talking about independence from the rest of the country now!

Economic fallout

As noted there’s been turmoil on the markets the last few days. And while there’s been something a a rally (which I’d put down to news that Teresa May seems more likely to success Cameron than Boris!), one can expect this to be temporary. With every drip of bad news the markets will gradually drop that little bit further. Already many companies have put in place a hiring freeze, my uni’s already done so, were expecting an announcement as to whether a spending freeze will also now come in.

Obviously a slow down in the economy will produce a bear market, falling stock prices, rising inflation, wages frozen yet the cost of living going up and falling tax revenue. While Osborne has backtracked for now on a post-referendum emergency budget, its difficult to see how some changes won’t be needed.

The trouble is Osborne’s already pulled all of the Austerity levers he can. His options now are to either go after areas where he hasn’t cut substantially which is basically those things that benefit pensioners, raise taxes (fat chance of that!) or pull the one lever he hasn’t tried yet – the compulsory enforced retirement of public sector workers above the age of say, 60 (some countries have gone to this extreme already as part of their austerity). And before the many Brexiters who are in this age group start whining about how he can’t do that, why we have rights….oh you mean those rights in EU law you just voted against?

Half a million civil service are believed to be at risk. Bottom line, if you thought things were bad before they are about to get worse and its generally been those who voted for Brexit who will feel the pinch.

The generational gap

Which brings us to the issue that there was a large generational gap in voting patterns. The old disproportionately voted for Brexit, while the young voted to stay in. Had the turn out of young people been higher (as it would have been had Cameron held the referendum at another time of year) the result could have been different.

Some have likened this to a generational betrayal. As Jack Lennard puts it:

“This is a final middle-fingered salute to the young from the baby boomer generation. Not content with racking up insurmountable debt, not content with destroying any hopes of sustainable property prices or stable career paths, not content with enjoying the benefits of free education and generous pension schemes before burning down the ladder they climbed up, the baby boomers have given one last turd on the doorstep of the younger generation”

Or as Nicholas Barrett puts it:

“the younger generation has lost the right to live and work in 27 other countries. We will never know the full extent of the lost opportunities, friendships, marriages and experiences we will be denied. Freedom of movement was taken away by our parents, uncles, and grandparents in a parting blow to a generation that was already drowning in the debts of our predecessors”

Many of the younger generation are now stuck with the reality that Brexit will make it harder for them to get a job and harder to get on the property ladder (yes house prices might fall, but if you can’t get a mortgage or a job to pay for it, what difference does that make!). Inter-generational betrayal could well lead to anger and eventually inter-generational revenge (a scenario, a BBC “if” episode looked into a few years back, where the younger generation rebelled against the generous deal pensioners are getting and voted in politicians who withdrew many of these benefits).

Hence why if the government were to exercise the options I mentioned earlier (gut pensions, withdraw winter fuel payments and free TV licenses, force older workers into retirement) I don’t think there will be a lot of sympathy from the younger generations. And when pensioners start to struggle because a jump in inflation and a bear market has suddenly made it harder to fund their retirement, I suspect many will say, you made your bed now lie in it.

In short anyone of pension age, or approaching it (and you might be retiring a little earlier now than you thought!) who voted for Brexit has just voted for a more scary and unpredictable financial future.

Anti-Intellectualism and racism

We now live in a post-facts era. In the referendum campaign, many facts and certainties (i.e. that the £350 million a week claim was rubbish, that the pound would fall in value, that the UK’s credit rating would be cut, etc.) were simply ignored by leave voters, in favour of lies, myths and half baked bullshit. It is, as Dana Nuccitelli points out, not really surprising to learn that many Brexit voters also happen to be climate change deniers.

So Brexit does suggest the sort of rising anti-intellectualism that we’ve been seeing in America has now spread to the UK. Given how crucial science is to the UK economy, this is a very worrying development. Quite apart from the fact that UK universities and tech companies are highly dependant on EU research funding (as well as access to the EEA for collaborative research purposes), this could well represent a slide backwards for the UK. One could see the UK falling behind in the science race, which will of course eventually have a devastate economic effect on the country.

And one of the post-referendum effects seems to be that its now okay to be openly racist in the UK. Many ethnic minorities have complained about an upsurge in racist abuse. Least we forget an MP was killed during the campaign. Unfortunately, I don’t think this will prove to be an isolated incident.

And coincidently, the view from abroad isn’t good. Many in the hostel’s in Norway whom I met from around the world took this referendum as being essentially an opinion poll on how racist Britain is. Given that 52% on a turn out of 70% voted leave, some are interpreting this as saying that 37% of British are racists. Britain’s reputation in the world has taken a severe beating as a result.

It worth watching what some of the US media are making of this, here’s Samatha Bea’s take on Brexit, the Daily Show’s and John Oliver’s.

Will German’s still buying Mini’s or Indians buy Jaguar cars they know to have been built by bigots? Will Beefeater Gin (which was being heavily marketed in Sweden while I was there) still be touting their Britishness when most people associate Britain with racism and bigotry? And will high tech firms set up in a country where their ethnic minority workers face racial harassment on the streets and bureaucratic racism from the state just because they had the nerve to come here and push money into the UK economy?

UK Trumped

Donald Trump, who showed all his keen political skills by arriving in the country at the worst possible time. It was a bit like a fan of KISS showing up to a concert the day after when a Baptist prayer group were renting the hall.

Trump did make some noises that he favoured Brexit and would offer the UK a favourable trade deal. Fat chance of that, Trump after all has flip-flopped his way through this whole campaign.

Trump is very much a protectionist and the idea that he would offer the UK a deal that will put his own business and the jobs of those voting for him at a disadvantage is clearly not going to happen. Once all of this is pointed out to him, he’d likely drag his feet on any deal and demand lots of concession, which (given how desperate the UK will be to get a deal) Westminster will have to concede on. He’ll probably insist on Windsor castle being named the Trump palace and putting a golf course across the tops of the cliff’s of Dover.

The UK’s best hope is that Clinton wins and wins big, with her party gaining a majority in Congress. This will cause her to focus on domestic politics and she’ll be anxious to avoid distractions. So she’ll toss the Brit’s a bone and perhaps given in on a few points. However anyone thinking that 60 million can get a better deal from 300 million Americans, than 450 million Europeans can get is clearly living in cloud cuckoo land.

And the UK will also now have to negotiate trade deals with other countries too, Japan, China, India, etc. In all cases they have the UK over a barrel. As noted, already there’s talk of Hinkley C being cancelled because of Brexit and of major infrastructure projects being put off as it is. Many UK jobs are dependant on foreign firms (increasingly owned by Asia) remaining in the UK. So its inevitable that the UK will not get anything like the deal it currently gets from these countries by being in the EU.

Indeed, its the WTO the UK first needs to square the circle with. Technically the UK will now have to join the WTO and its chief has already warned that’s not going to be straight forward, getting more difficult the further the UK drifts from a EEA style Norway model. Without WTO membership foreign trade becomes increasingly difficult.

A second vote?

All of these things explains why several million have signed a petition calling for a 2nd vote. Already several Tories have suggested that there should be a 2nd referendum on the terms of any exit deal, while the lib dem leader is promising to try and stop Brexit and if that doesn’t work campaign on a platform of taking the UK back into the EU.

All of this raises the possibility of a 2nd EU referendum. Which given how dangerously flawed the last one was, its hardly fair that a racist minority (i.e. 37% of the electorate) should be allowed to cause so much damage to the lives of the remaining majority. However there is a rather significant obstacle to any talk of a 2nd vote. The EU itself.

As far as the EU is concerned out means out, as Junker has made very clear. Any idea of informal talks is being denied and the EU is putting increasing pressure on the UK to invoke article 50 and start the ball rolling on its EU exit. Quite simply put, the EU is fed up with pandering to the Brits, you’ve decided to leave, fine piss off then and don’t let the door hit you on the way out.

And keep in mind some eurocrats in Brussels have long favoured some sort of arrangement that demotes the UK to 2nd class status within the EU, so a push towards EEA membership is probably the next least worse option as they see it.

Also by shuffling Britain towards the exit door, the EU knows it makes it more likely that they will get an agreement favourable to them. The UK will have two years to negotiate its exit or risk being chucked out without any agreement, likely provoking a full blown economic crises and mass capital flight (if you thought events on Friday were bad, wait a while). As I pointed out before a future UK PM will come under enormous pressure at this point from the civil service, business, the military and allies to sign any such deal put in front of them by the EU, even if it ultimately leaves the UK worse off that it already is. So Brussels strategy here is sound.

So even in the best case scenario, e.g. the Tory party splits, an early election which a labour and lib dem coalition wins. Along with the pro-EU elements of the Tory party they hold an immediate 2nd referendum and win; I would still expect the EU to insist that the UK need to renegotiate its membership. This means that all of those “reforms” Cameron got will go (they were only there to appease the bigot brigade, which clearly didn’t work, so no point in keeping them) as will likely things like the British rebate. Of course if they are feeling particularly uncharitable they may insist the UK must now accept entry to the EU under the same terms and conditions of a new EU member state (i.e. all of the UK’s opt outs will go, we have to commit to joining the euro, etc.).

In short the UK just said no to the best deal we were ever going to get from Brussels. Any attempt to dither about leaving or re-enter the EU will mean accepting an agreement which leaves the UK worse off than it was before. There is basically no going back from this. If your a regret full leave voter, then your a moron and and idiot, do me a favour and stay away from ballot boxes.

Ignore it?

Another option is that parliament simply ignores the referendum. In theory its not legally binding, both houses (and arguably the Northern Ireland, Welsh and Scottish assemblies) have to approve it and its probable at least one of those will say no (actually all would vote no if given a free vote). In short, Parliament could treat this referendum as if someone just chucked a dead cat in their yard, get a shovel and throw it back over the fence.

However, I don’t think that’s a realistic option politically, nor do I think the EU, nor the markets would except this without some form of 2nd referendum or an early election.

The positives?

Which brings me to at least the one set of positives we can salvage from all of this. Brexit marks probably the end to all of the right’s lies and myths. Like a serial killer they’ve finally managed to act out their twisted fantasy and are now stuck with the consequences of that.

And the consequences are the buck stops here. Pretty much everything bad that happens over the next few years will be blamed (rightly or wrongly) on Brexit. Can’t get a job, or you’ve just lost the one you had, guess who’s fault that is? Not foreigners, not migrants or the EU, but the people like you who voted for Brexit! Your company can’t export overseas anymore because of a loss of free trade deals with the China and the US, guess whose to blame for that one? Your benefits cheque just got cut and you’re in dire financial straits, well you shouldn’t have voted leave then! You’re a pensioner and now can’t afford to heat your home or buy food anymore, well guess whose fault that is? Going abroad is now a pain in the ass because of all the passport controls and red tape, well I suppose you shouldn’t have voted for Brexit should you!

In essence Brexit amounts to the Bigot brigade breaking cover. And out in the open they are now exposed to certain day to day realities in a way they’ve previously managed to avoid. Because unfortunately reality has something of a pro-liberal and pro-progressive bias.

Irony still not understood

The UK’s energy secretary Amber Rudd is showing signs that she possesses a superpower – a complete immunity to understanding the concepts of irony or hypocrisy.

She has been complaining that councils are taking too long to make decisions on Fracking, suggesting that they are just delaying the inevitable and should just hurry up and make a decision within 16 weeks, threatening that the government will take the power to decide off councils who are seen to be dithering.

Of course this all but betrays the fact that the government’s plan is to railroad over local opposition to fracking and drive applications through, even when there’s a clear majority of locals against it. This is in stark contrast to their policy on wind energy where they are trying to halt onshore wind on the off chance it might spoil the view from ones hunting estate/golf course.

And councils will point out that the reason why its taking them so long is that they are presented with a room full of evidence that they then have to shift through. And with government austerity they can’t pay for the staff to process such applications any quicker. So if Amber Rudd wants things moved along, how about wandering down to number 11 and asking Osborne to pay for some extra staff for councils?

Also there’s a more worrying message. I would argue that fracking has gotten a bad name for itself because the Bush Adm. promotion of it created a massively under-regulated industry. It became a wild west and inevitably you ended up with some jack-asses who didn’t know what they were doing making a mess. If fracking was better regulated, this won’t be a problem, or so I am told by those in academic circles who are promoting it.

I recall a situation in Ireland where a major chemicals company moved into the area around my home town of Cork. The first thing they did before so much as turning a sod, was conducting an intensive environmental audit of the whole area. This was so that they knew everything in the environment (natural and unnatural) as well as every source of existing pollution. That way if anyone from the Irish environment agency, or some ambulance chasing lawyer, came along and accused them of putting this or that into the local ground water. They would have the evidence to prove, nope not us, that’s likely the fertiliser plant down the road.

You would think the fracking company’s would do the same and that the government would support such a policy. A careful environmental audit prior to any fracking, a few trial operations under intense environmental scrutiny, which would then serve to determine best practice for future operations, as well as establish what the actual environmental impact of fracking is likely to be. Instead Amber Rudd seems to favour the wild west approach that’s got fracking such a bad name state side.

And there is also further hypocrisy. The justification for cutting subsidies for renewables (or “Green crap” as Cameron put it) has supposedly been to cut back on bills. This is despite the fact that renewable and energy efficiency subsidies cost about 6% of the average UK bill, about £50-75 per household per year. In the worse case scenario (had we stuck to the energy plans of past governments), this subsidy could have potentially doubled over the next decade. By contrast, the IMF have a report out that estimates that subsidies towards fossil fuels costs the UK about $635 per person (about £400, i.e. at least 4 times more than any subsidy to renewables would ever cost us!).

The reality is that the government does not give a damn about climate change, value for money for householders, nor do they care whether the lights go out. They are merely promoting the energy options that will most benefit certain vested interests in the nuclear and fossil fuels industry….which incidentally also includes one of Rudd’s own advisers I might add. What is more worrying is that much of the Tories anti-renewable agenda is simply ideological. An ideology which is putting the UK out of step with all but a handful of other loony right wing governments, and risking the country’s long term energy future.

Tories cuts to renewable subsidies – a new age of stupid

The Tories have followed through with their election threat to cut wind farm subsidies. However they have also proceeded to cut numerous other subsidies, including those given to solar energy and biomass as well as the Green deal (grants for improved insulation). The Green investment bank, one of the few progressive moves that came out of the previous lib dem/Tory government is also to be “part privatised”….which sounds suspiciously like “allowed to go bankrupt” (the only type of bank the Tories would let go to the wall!). All in all it looks like the UK’s energy policy is about to be plunged into a “dark age”.

The (pro-nuclear) environment secretary Ashley Rudd also misses the irony of the fact that she is throwing a massive subsidy the way of nuclear energy, to the tune of 68% of the cost of every watt of electricity they sell. Yet wind farms are also excluded from this “contracts for difference” nuclear slush fund subsidy scheme, despite offering better value for money. And this is on top of the fact that the UK DECC already spends 40% of its budget servicing nuclear waste, the costs of solar energy subsidies are but 6% of the total costs associated with energy subsidies.

All of this would be just plain bad news, if it weren’t for the fact that industry (and not just the renewables industry) are warning, that these measures send out a “chilling” message to business, something that will inevitably lead to job losses, if not a complete halt to work in terms of adding new power capacity. Just as we go into a winter with just 1.2% of spare capacity. It hardly seems to me a winning strategy to halt the production of the the very energy source that’s growing, while coal stations are shutting down, as they cannot compete with wind power and hydro.

And yet, as I’ve previously mentioned, while the Tories are quite keen to block wind farm applications, they also plan to remove any right of residences to object to fracking under their own homes, while throwing yet more subsidies the way of the fossil fuel industry. Something that is sure to put the UK at loggerheads with the rest of the EU, Obama (and inevitably Hilary, who appears to be trying to make climate change an election issue next year) and the Pope (of course Cameron and Osborne aren’t Catholic, so the Pope’s message was kind of lost on a pair of followers of Cthulhu ;D ).

Perhaps the worst of all of the cuts however, are those to the Green deal and the scrapping of building codes for low carbon homes. As I’ve previously mentioned on my energy blog the bulk of the UK’s energy consumption is spend heating and cooling homes, particularly the heating load over the winter months. This accounts for between 36-42% of the UK’s energy consumption and carbon emissions (depending on how you count it). By contrast, electricity is but 20% of the UK final energy consumption (a good portion of which is of course consumed heating and cooling buildings) while vehicles consume 25%.

So the easiest, simplest, cheapest and most painless way to cut carbon emissions, while in the long term cutting energy bills and improving the nation’s energy security, is to improve energy efficiency standards. Furthermore, I would argue that it is heating, not electricity, that is the energy source we need to protect. Give most people on a cold winter’s night the choice between losing electricity or losing heating and most will chose to do without electricity (trust me I’ve had many a cold bothy night and I know which of those two I’d choose!). Going without electricity isn’t fun, its inconvenient, but at least nobody’s going to die. Which is exactly what will happen to the UK with the loss of heating, we’re talking about grannies freezing to death and that sort of thing.

So there is ultimately no logic to this other than the more obvious fact that this Tory policy is driven purely by ideology. The same ideology that drives the right wing in the US Tea Party to deny climate change and oppose gay marriage. A belief that if you bury your head in the sand the lion will go away. That the solution to a look out screaming “iceberg” is to not have any look outs and blind the helmsmen. We are truly in the age of stupid.

Tales from the Climate wars

A couple of recent stories from the environmental movement might be of interest. This is particularly topical as there is a new documentary film out called “Merchants of Doubt” (based on the book of the same name) which exposes the tactics used by climate change deniers and their links to the fossil fuel industry. Indeed, its pointed out that many of the same tactics used by deniers are similar to those employed by Big Tobacco.

Mega drought risk threat confirmed by NASA
The effects of climate change will not be spread equally across the globe. Some areas might see some benefits, crops yields increasing for example, other regions will suffer some limited effects, but some parts of the globe are going to see very severe effects. Indeed whole areas will see dramatic and quite devastating climate shifts. One of the regions which it has long been suspected could see a major reversal of fortunes, is the Mid-Western states of the United States, where it is feared climate change could lead to droughts and desertification, turning the entire region from the bread and beef basket of America, into a mix of desert and steppe.

These fears are not idle scaremongering, but are based on the knowledge that in the past, when the world was only a few degrees warmer, most of the US Mid-West WAS a desert, so that it would return to that state after a spell of human induced planetary warming is hardly controversial. The region has also suffered from several persistent droughts in recent years. Anyway a new study by NASA scientists has taken data from past drought events and essentially rolled things forward to suggest that so-called “thousand year” drought events might become a little more common. Droughts which last for 30 to 50 years at a time are a possibility by the centuries end, with an 80% chance of a 35 year drought.

Naturally such events would dramatically alter the landscape, rendering a large chunk of America unable to support its current population. Imagine the Dust Bowl of the 1930’s magnified twenty fold. Ironically, of course the Mid-West happens to be the home of the Tea Party types who are sceptical of climate change and want big government off their back. Well be careful what you wish for. After all, how is the rest of America going to react to this? Throw government money at the problem….or suggest to the tea party types that they’ve made their bed, now lie in it!

Climate denier outed
The climate denier camp will frequently flag up the words of one particular climate scientist who takes a dissenting view of climate, while ignoring the other 97% of climate scientists who reach the opposite conclusion. Indeed, deniers are fast running out of material as the number of true “denier” climate scientists is becoming so rare, they should really talk to the UN about getting climate change deniers put on the endangered species list or something (my plan, fence of parts of Texas, capture the likes of Monckton and Co. with some sleeping darts, move them in and try to get them to breed :))).

Take for example John Christy, one of the few vaguely credible climate skeptic’s. However, he doesn’t deny that humans are influencing the climate, his bone of contention is to what degree we’re responsible, an issue referred too as “climate sensitivity”…..of course Fox News or the Daily Mail tend to gloss over such pesky points, but then again, it doesn’t take much to be a “climate expert” on Fox, merely being an accountant will do for them!…like you can be a “British terror expert” just by being a dim witted racist!

But I digress, anyway one of the problems with such trends is that more often than not, these climate change deniers get outed as being in receipt of large amounts of cash from some dubious sources. Of course, the right media is quick to airbrush such individuals out of history at this point.

Well they just managed to catch a whooper. The denier Willie Soon, whose name and credentials have been used to endorse many papers denying climate change, some of which have been used to support Republican friendly legislation, has just been outed. Documents reveal he’s been on the take for sometime and may have received as much as $1.2 million from several oil companies. This is a rather serious blow to the denier movement, as his name happens to endorse numerous papers by other deniers. Wipe out them from the scientific record and their ain’t a lot left.

And this comes on the back of the Berkeley Surface Temperature Study last year. Funded by the fracking barons the Koch brothers, who probably hoped they’d come with with yet more drivel for the denial machine. Instead its authors largely agreed with the conclusions of the IPCC. Talk about an own goal!

The Ice Age Myth cometh
An all too common myth you’ll hear from deniers is that “scientists predicted an Ice age back in the 1970’s”. Even the BBC seems to have been taken in by this one, as they’ve brought it up in a piece on climate change as recently as this very night.

The truth is that while the media did get taken in by a number of rather vocal scientists, the vast bulk of scientists and the weight of the science published, during this period, predicted not cooling but warming due to increasing carbon dioxide levels. The main reason for this misunderstanding was the issue of sulfur emissions, however further information on these, plus a more precise idea as to the triggering and ending of ice ages, quickly cast doubt on these predictions.

From 1965 to 1979 just seven peer reviewed papers predicted cooling, while 42 related to probable global warming. By 1975 the US National Academy of Sciences while, certainly keeping an open mind on things, had taken the view that global warming from carbon emissions seemed the more serious risk.

So if anything this “cooling” myth is proof of how a small but vocal minority of scientists can lead astray journalists looking for a sensationalist story.

Harvard Endowment campaign
There’s a campaign growing in Harvard university, driven by current and past students, for the universities massive $32 billion endowment fund, to exclude fossil fuel companies. As you can imagine this is being resisted by many of Harvard’s wealthier Alumni (the sort who bought their degree by their parents giving a large chuck of cash into that endowment fund!).

However it could set a long term trend that would be very damaging to fossil fuel companies, where like arms dealers, many refuse to lend or invest in them for ethical reasons. Its the sort of thing that could easily have a significant impact at bringing about serious action on climate change.

Abandoning the sinking ship
And perhaps recognising the consequences of stories such as the above, the PR firm Edelman has apparently ended its long running relationship with the American Petroleum Institute. This is probably driven by the fact that there is an increasing rift opening up within the capitalist world between the fossil fuel companies who want to ignore climate change. And other industries who recognise it as a threat to their very existence.

Take the insurance industry, they have been increasingly vocal about the risks posed by climate change. The insurance industry is seeing an alarming increase in claims from large storms and extreme weather events, which in turn is leading to both an increase in premium to offset this. They are also increasingly reluctant to insure people in certain high risk areas, forcing people living there to either go without insurance (wiping out the value of their home) or resort to federally funded schemes. As I’ve pointed out before, one could argue we’re already paying a defacto carbon tax in terms of the money needed to prop up these schemes.

Either way, it does show that the cracks are starting to grow and the climate denier bubble is at risk of bursting, as much for practical financial reasons as anything else.

Changing Weather patterns
We tend to consider climate change as some sort of long range threat that our children have to worry about. However the effects its having on global weather patterns are actually becoming all to obvious. While temperatures have been unusually cold in the North East of the US, by contrast Alaska, northern Canada and central Europe is unusually warm for this time of year. This is of course is no huge surprise, its well known that the Jet Streams play a key role in set weather patterns.

For example, remember those storms last year? Well, that is believed to be related to the movement of the jet stream from its normal path to instead wind up focused on the UK for several weeks in a row. And yes, you guessed it, this is one of the predicted consequences of climate change.

The money pit
I’m generally skeptical of nuclear power for a variety of practical reasons. For example the relatively slow rate at which reactors can realistically be built, which is but a fraction of the current build rate of renewables. So slow in fact, that its questionable whether new reactors can be built quickly enoough to replace the existing fleet as its retired. Then there’s the problem that nuclear is something of a one trick pony, good for baseload power, but not really much use for intermediate or peaking load power, or indeed the 80% of our energy use that isn’t electricity.

But above all else its the costs that have me worried. The capital costs to build new plants are colossal, far exceeding the numbers for any alternative and these construction costs are likely to be exceeded by the bill to clean up the mess afterwards.

And the problem with decommissioning is that the costs keep on being inflated upwards. The bill to clean up Sellafield has now risen to £53 billion, a £5 billion rise in just one year. This is merely one part of a total clean up bill for current decommissioned reactors that works out at an eye watering £70 billion. I recall a few years ago, having to tell off some environmentalist for claiming that the cost of decommissioning in the UK was over $100 billion. I told him that he was exaggerating a tad….well at current exchange rates its about $108 billion, so he was actually underestimating it! 88|

Suffice to say this is not small change. Such a hefty bill is going to represent a significant cost to the exchequer for years to come. Which raises the question as to whether its such a good idea to be doubling down on nuclear, with Hinkley C, a plant that will require a subsidy rate of about 68% per kWh (at present electricity prices) and that’s before we even start to consider decommissioning costs. Would it not seem more sensible to spend that money instead on something like energy efficiency programmes, greater use of CHP, or Tidal Power?

UKIP: the last 1,000 days

There were two programme on the box over the last week about UKIP, and its probably not the sort of press attention they are looking for. Firstly there was the Beeb’s “meet the UKIP’ers” in which a group of generally angry old pensioners, in a deprived ex-seaside town, wandered around blaming foreigners (rather than budget airlines) for their town’s demise, constantly complaining about how they had to watch what they say in case the media labelled them as “racist”. Well that’s never been a problem for me! If you’re worried about accidentally saying something racist, that’s probably because you ARE a racist! I mean one of these guys, the local UKIP chairman for Farage’s constituency, was ex-National Front. Yet he seemed oblivious to the fact that this either implied he was a racist, or a complete brain dead moron to join an organisation like that, hang around with them for several years, surrounded by skin heads, giving the nazi salute, and it didn’t occur to him that they were more racist than a Chelsea supporter :no:

The other programme was C4’s “UKIP: the first 100 days”, which portrayed the effects of a theoretical UKIP government’s first hundred days in office. Needless to say, UKIP weren’t happy, giving them yet something else to be angry about. However I’d argue that actually Channel 4 gave UKIP a pretty easy ride, they failed to tackle the many obvious hypocrisies and unworkable policies within UKIP’s manifesto. My fear for UKIP won’t be the 100 days, it would be the thousand days after that as they would likely prove to be the last 1,000 days of the United Kingdom.

For starters there’s UKIP’s plans to leave the EU. I had a go at the Catalonians a few months back (and how unworkable their proposed independence was) and I’ve pointed out how one of the flaws in the SNP’s plans, probably something that ultimately cost them the referendum, was their inability to answer basic questions about an independent Scotland. Well UKIP’s plans include many far worse howlers.

Trouble with Trade
So Farage wants independence from the EU, okay then and how long would that take to organise? You do realise you’ll need to negotiate a deal with the EU and that’s likely to take time, and I mean a good few years? If there’s one thing the EU doesn’t do and that’s work in a hurry.

As I’ve discussed before, the economic consequences of leaving Europe would be severe. The, LSE predicts a significant drop in GDP, even in the best case scenario. So there would be quite significant job losses, as many of the UK’s companies rely on integrated manufacturing processes, which means tight co-ordination of manufacturing across the EU and the wider world. Any sort of interruption to trade will inevitably make it very tempting to move factories across the channel (or up the M6, or across the Irish sea), not least given the lower wages in certain parts of Europe (or lower taxes in countries like Ireland).

A crucial requirement of UKIP’s plans, is to secure a free trade agreement with the rest of the EU and the EEA. However, that assumes the EU will grant such an agreement on terms UKIP would favour. And the likely terms of such a deal are already known…and they aren’t exactly UKIP friendly! They would require the UK agreeing to take on all EU law relating to trade and allowing free movement of people in support of commerce. In essence Nigel and his UKIP members presence in the EU parliament (and Britain’s veto over EU policy) will be replaced with a fax machine in Westminster, through which the EU will tell the UK parliament when to jump and how high. Regardless of your views on the EU, how could anyone consider this an improvement on the current status quo?

I repeatedly hear from UKIP types their prayer “the EU has more of a need for the UK than the UK needs the EU”. Well the economic figures say the opposite is true. Hence in these negotiations the EU will know it has the UK over a barrel and the UK will ultimately have little choice but to cave in. And even if it were true, the culture of the EU (which means they will not bow to threats from petty bigots, they made that mistake back in 1938 and we all know how that one worked out) prevents them from doing so. This was fairly obvious during the Eurozone crisis and recent events regarding Greece.

And it’s not just the EU UKIP would have to negotiate with but the US, China and numerous other countries, some of which have already warned the UK of the economic consequences in the event of Brexit. They would argue that the UK leaving the EU would be sufficiently disruptive to trade that it would invalidate any existing trade agreements. The US has already been very clear that they will exclude the UK from existing trade treaties if the UK leaves the EU. Inevitably the UK will not get the same sort of deal it got with the rest of the EU backing it up. After all, the Chinese can’t play brinkmanship with the EU and risk being shut out of the world’s largest economy. But they can certainly afford to do so with UK, particularly when they know the UK can’t afford to leave the room without a deal.

In the meantime the UK economy will be in limbo land. Inevitably investors will shuffle their cash off somewhere safe (Eurozone, US treasury bonds offshore tax havens, gold bullion, canned food ;D), investment will grind to a halt as businesses wait to see what happens next. In short economic paralysis. Inevitably interest rates will go up as the UK’s credit rating is cut and inflation will rise.

This will mean in simple terms, that the interest on your mortgage will go up, as will the cost of living. But wages or the interest and returns paid to shareholders will not increase by nearly as much. This would be particularly bad news for anyone who has retired and is on a fixed income…So if C4 were being genuinely alarmist perhaps they could have shown UK pensioners living off food scavenged from bins and burning furniture for heat.

Government by chaos
Of course we have to factor in the UKIP factor to any negotiations. As UKIP have shown by their past behaviour, government by them would be chaotic, disorganised and gaffe prone, with much dictatorial micro-management by Farage. Consider how UKIP treats its own when they step out of line. Rather than any sort of enquiry or due process, there’s simply a dictate from HQ (usually by e-mail or text!) and the individual in question is pretty much taken out back and shot. There is for example, the jostling and backstabbing regarding party candidate selection. Or how Farage sacked the entire leadership of UKIP Scotland (including climate denier and former deputy leader Chris Monckton) when they failed to toe the party line and failed to perform.

Now all well and good this happening with a party whose basically in the Monster Raving loony category, but imagine it continues when some of them are minsters. The effect on any negotiations will be to drag things out, if not convenience other countries that the British have lost the plot, walking away from any trade deal until someone sane is in power. Naturally the effect of such chaotic and inept national leadership would have a severe effect on the stock market and the UK’s credit rating. This is why tin-pot dictatorships in Africa can’t get a loan, because investors never know whose going to be in charge when the time comes for the loan to be paid off!

Brexit…or Englandexit?
Then there’s the possible breakup of the UK to worry about , how are UKIP going to handle that? The SNP have pointed out that Scotland would have to sign off on an EU exit, with similar noises coming out of Wales. This would likely mean either giving these region’s sufficient economic independence via Devo Max that they could effectively become an EU member themselves in all but name (which would of course render much of UKIP plans moot). Or fight with Hollyrood (and Cardiff) and trigger another independence referendum or two.

And what about Northern Ireland? The Good Friday agreement all but assumes an open border between the Republic and the North. Getting around that would mean negotiating with Sinn Fein, and we already know what their terms will be – a referendum on reunification of Ireland. While polls do suggest a No, I suspect if such a poll were put in the context of an EU exit (i.e. you’re expecting the non-sectarian voters who are currently saying No to maintain the status quo, to vote in favour of a tax increase, a cut in services and higher living costs just to stay part of the UK) there’s at least a 50/50 chance of a Yes vote. How are UKIP going to deal with that one? And resisting it would probably mean reigniting the troubles.

It is for these reasons that I consider the greatest threat to the “United” part of the UK is UKIP. The UK self-destruction party would seem a better name for them.

Labour shortages
Then there’s the labour shortages, its a pity this programme didn’t point out that if you arrest lots of migrant workers, well that does kind of mean they won’t be able to do their jobs. The whole reason why migrants are over here, is because there are labour shortages within the UK and thus jobs available and not enough people with the necessary skills to do them. Immigration from the Eurozone represents a net boost of £5-10 billion, which rises to £25 billion if we include the whole of the EEA.

Now its all well and good pointing to the many unemployed in jobs centres, but that’s not much help to an employer who needs a few hundred skilled brick layers or the NHS which needs doctors and dentists, or in my field where we need to bring in academics from abroad with expertise in a particular narrow field. I might add that this is why I support labour’s plans to encourage apprenticeships, as its this “reskilling” that’s a far more effective way of reducing labour shortages and unemployment, compared to beating up Romanian and Chinese immigrants.

Also, more often than not, the problem in the UK is there are jobs available, just not were people currently live. The main reason why immigrants are taking them is they are prepared to move and many British aren’t (for various reasons). This is why UKIP tends to poll well in deprived areas with relatively little migration, such as ex-resort towns in the South east.

So chuck people out of the country and suddenly you have crops rotting in fields with nobody to harvest them, engineering projects put on hold due to a lack of staff and NHS waiting lists increasing due to a lack of nurses and health care workers. And as I’ve discussed before there is a certain hypocrisy towards claiming to be right wing and in favour of free markets (as UKIP do) and then equally want to impose a series of massive trade barriers that will simply make it impossible for some British businesses to function.

Indeed the one set of jobs the programme showed UKIP, hiring ex-soldiers as immigration enforcement officers (which is based on actual UKIP policy), does actually show the nativity of the party. Most ex-army types I know would probably be insulted at the thought that the only thing they are good for is breaking down doors and beating up minorities. Many of them took the time in the army to develop various “skills”, be it management skills, IT, repairing equipment (electronics, mechanics), expert driving skills, etc. They have therefore gone on to get jobs in a variety of different roles (emergency vehicle drivers, health care, IT, engineering, etc.) and would probably be unsuited to this sort of a job (and probably not very fit anymore!).

Power cuts
And if you think I’m being alarmists, well I haven’t even started talking about the power cuts yet. The UK, and in particular England, is heavily dependant on imported energy. Half of the UK’s energy is now imported and the main source of domestic energy production is of course within Scotland, which might well be a separate country after Brexit. About 7% of the UK’s electricity is imported, mostly from European nuclear and renewable energy plants, which is crucial to making up the growing winter gap in UK generating capacity. Scotland is responsible for about 15% of UK electricity, as well as supplying most of the gas, either domestic gas or gas imports from Norway (the other major source of Gas coming in via pipelines from Europe). So the consequences of the UK leaving the EU would be to hand England’s energy fate into the hands of…well Scotland and the rest of the EU.

And while the other parties have been at least trying to pretend they are angry with the big six energy suppliers over the high cost of bills and lack of progress on the construction of new power stations, UKIP’s spokesman on this issue has suggested he is “sympathetic” to the power companies.

Again, it suggest enormous naivety and ignorance of the issue on the part of UKIP. They seem to believe that it is the fault of over-regulation by the government and that the only reason why the power companies build wind farms is to claim subsidy money. However if anything the opposite is true. Subsidies represent only a small portion of the lifetime costs of renewables (about 13%, so 87% of the cost of a wind farm comes from the energy company). The reason why power companies have been building them is because they represent a hedge against future rises in gas prices, with the subsidy intended to sweeten the deal slightly to hedge against drop in gas prices, such as has been the case recently. And most people would argue the reason for high bills is down to a lack of any effort to reign in the power companies, with Ofgem basically asleep at the wheel :zz:

The problem with energy is that it is a long term problem requiring long term solutions. It takes decades to build a power station or develop a new gas field and nobody in the right mind will finance such projects unless they are sure that the government isn’t going to change policy and render it unviable. The main political parties have been very good at making well meaning speeches committing to renewables, fracking, nuclear or whatever is the current flavour of the month, but then basically kicking the can down the road and not implementing the policies to bring about long term investment in the industry, hence the alarming drops in the UK’s generating capacity.

UKIP’s policy of taking their hands off the wheel and then letting the “magic of the market” solve everything would likely just lead to the big six giving us all a right royal shafting, building even less power infrastructure (after all, as ENRON showed in California, an artificial shortage means their profits go up) until the resulting blackouts get s embarrassing and disruptive that they force government intervention.

But any attempt by the state to solve such a problem would be problematic. While I’ve heard noises out of UKIP proposing to copy France’s policy on nuclear for example (which is again somewhat at odds with their supposed free market values), one has point out the decades that would take to implement, the massive numbers of foreign workers who would have to be allowed in to work on these projects (destroying any attempt at immigration quota’s) and the hundreds of billions it would cost. And whose going to pay those costs? The whole reason why Hinkley C is being subsidised (to the tune of 68% of the cost of every kWh) is because the markets refused to lend money to the project….and that was in an environment where gas prices were high and credit cheap. Farage will be trying to do the same when gas prices (and renewable prices) are low and credit expensive. How do you think that’s going to work out? So in short, vote UKIP…then invest in candle makers!

Again, I’m not saying the UK isn’t entitled to have a referendum on leaving the EU, but at the risk of sounding like Alastair Darling, independence would be for life not just for Christmas. And I don’t think many UKIP supporters realise that. The UK would be paying a huge price for what ultimately will turn out to be a futile and meaningless gesture that will in all likelihood have the completely opposite effect that they intended.

The hypocrisy of the UK’s climate policy

As I’ve pointed out before, there is huge hypocrisy when it comes to the UK’s energy policy. Like many vaguely sane countries, the UK is legally committed to taking action on climate change. Laws have been passed in parliament and the UK has signed into EU legislation which sets targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The UK has also signed international agreements, with legally binding targets.

However despite all this, the UK government is intent on promoting fracking for yet more fossil fuels, even though falling oil and gas prices hardly give any obvious justification for this policy. This in itself would be bad enough, if it weren’t for the fact that the Government have been actively working against the deployment of renewables, as well as energy saving measures which would allow people to lower their energy bills while at the same time cutting carbon emissions.

Take for example the town of Balcombe at the centre of the Fracking debate. Tory plans to change the tax laws governing community owned energy schemes threaten to undermine the attempts by locals to build community funded (and locally supported) renewables….while down the road they attempt to steamroller over local opposition to fracking, even thought the are basically reneging on multiple international treaties and violating the law of the land to do so. Needless to say it makes a mockery of Cameron’s “big society” propaganda.

And of course, this promotion of shale gas continues despite falling fossil fuel prices, which likely to led to cirb the ethausiasm of many companies for fracking. The reasons for this price drop are I fear not fully understood. Contrary to media reports, the drops in price are almost certainly not related to fracking or other unconventional sources, as these only represent a tiny fraction of global output (a little less than 5% in fact). Changes in supply and demand factors and improvements in EOR (Enhanced Oil Recovery) seem a more likely explanation.

However the drop in prices has, along with expanding renewable energy, led to much lower wholesale electricity costs. Although despite this there have been few if any significant drops in the price of electricity by the major producers. Consumer magazine Which? recently estimated (prior to recent wholesale price drops) bills could be on average £145 cheaper.

So you may ask, where is the regulator in all this, after all Ofgem are legally required to take action at this point. And what has been Ofgem’s response? Suggest that people should save energy by eating a packed lunch? And what next? If a pensioner is sure they are going to die of hypothermia this winter will they suggest that they should burn the house down to save on the energy needed to defrost your frozen corpse?

One is quickly forced to the conclusion that the Tory party is beholden to their cronies within the energy industry. Community owned energy schemes were central to the large increases in renewable energy use in Germany, as well as threatening to break the monopoly power of the the big six energy firms. So its obvious why the Tories are so anxious to kill them off, lest more people work out there are alternatives to taking a shafting every quarter from you’re utility. Promoting fracking has little to do with lowering bills and everything to do with some back door cash handouts and tax breaks. In much the same way that Cameron’s assault on “Green crap” had nothing to do with lowering bills and everything to do to helping the energy giants pocket yet more cash.

And the massive subsidy to nuclear, which as I recently pointed out on my energy blog, works out at a subsidy rate per kWh of roughly 68% over the 50 year lifetime of the plant, versus a subsidy rate of at most 13% for wind (over 10 years) and 25% for solar (over 35 years), is clearly so blatantly excessive its true purpose is merely to provide a slush fund to fuel the profits of many energy firms, many of them foreign owned I might add, for decades to come.

Let us be clear, this is corruption of the highest level, little different from G. W. Bush and his war for oil. Climate change after all, will have a dramatic impact on some parts of the world, wiping out certain low lying countries. The only difference is that they’ve found a way to do it without having to invade a foreign country first and getting us to foot the bill!

Across the pond

A couple of stories from across the pond in America have caught my eye recently, the sort that may have been overlooked by the media over here…

US Cadbury ban
Ex-pats and other fans of UK made Cadbury’s chocolate products are currently stockpiling large quantities of their favourites, as a ban on the British made stuff is about to come into effect to prevent “brand confusion”…or perhaps because the leading US firm Hershey doesn’t want to face up to any competition.

You may enquire, don’t we have a free trade agreement with the US? How can they just ban stuff like this? Well because there are loopholes in such trade agreements covering issues such as health regulations, corporate branding and environmental legislation. And suffice to say, there ain’t a lot a lawyer needs to drive a bus thro such rules.

If you think they’re being a bit hard on Cadbury, try buying Haggis in the US or Marmite and Irn Bru! It is literally easier to buy crack cocaine in parts of the US, given the consequences of US government regulations. Yes, to the yanks an AR-15 or uzi can be safely handled by a 11 year old, but letting people eat offal or drink a can of ginger is just downright reckless endangerment. :??:

Americans like to pride themselves on being the land of free enterprise and small government, however the reality is that they are nothing of the sort. Many of the same Tea party type who wave their “get big government off my back” placards will be the first to start whinging if foreign or out of state competition threatens their jobs. Congressmen in Washington therefore come under enormous pressure, both from well funded lobby groups for one industry or another, as well as from their constituents, to try and protect jobs within their state and free markets be damned.

Good examples include the US steel industry, the debacle over the KC-X tanker aircraft (where a European aircraft beat a US designed one to the contract, prompting congress to restart the competition & re-write the rules to make sure the “right” aircraft won), generous farm subsidies (which makes it almost impossible for other food producers in Africa or South America to compete on grain prices) as well as the Medicare budget (a massive free subsidy to big pharma) as well as numerous subsidies to the US fossil fuels and nuclear industry.

And if you think that Congress is bad, the individual US states are even worse. Take for example, the recent banning of sales of electric cars from Tesla Motors in several US states. In part this was due to the pathological hatred of many Republicans for anything green, but mostly it was done to protect vested interests in the established auto industry, as well as jobs in local auto dealers from an upstart company like Tesla.

These policies are so engrained in the US political system it can lead to all sorts of laughable absurdities. Such as arch-climate denier Rick Perry talking up the success of Texas wind farms in reducing America’s carbon footprint (Texas has more wind farms now than any other US state). The rest of the GOP seems to develop selective deafness whenever this comes up. Same as the Democrats will ignore one of their own from a coal mining state voting against the president on any climate change issue. As its assumed that he will do whatever needed to protect local jobs, regardless of the implications for party politics….or the polar bears!

I’m reminded of the situation in Nigeria, whereby corruption is so endemic within the country, its simply assumed that any politician who wins office will “share the cake”, i.e. reward his friends and family with cosy jobs and kick backs. A politician who actually tried to tackle the country’s corruption would likely be in for a very short stint in power and likely be ostracised by his community afterwards.

Anyway, I bring this matter up as it does represent one of the dangers with UKIP and the Tory proposals for leaving the EU. Crucial to such a move would be securing a free trade agreement with both the EU and most of the rest of the world (as existing treaties with other trading blocs would have to be renegotiated). And much like the SNP seemed to assume they were entitled by right to sharing Sterling, there is no guarantee whatsoever that UKIP will get what they want here.

But as events in the US show, even if they get a free trade agreement with the EU, it will be all too tempting in many situations for politicians, either side of the channel, with jobs in their district under threat, to try and find loopholes in any such trade agreements allowing them to restrict the sale of UK goods (or visa versa).

As one libertarian blogger points out (hardly the sort of person we can accuse of pro-EU basis) if a company ships its goods across the channel and the French ceases them (for a perfectly legal custom’s inspection….which they are then very slow to complete), what is he supposed to do in a Brexit situation? Well at the moment he could go directly to the EU or failing that his MEP…hoping and praying that MEP isn’t a member of UKIP, as they aren’t terribly active in their jobs. With the UK outside of the EU, it has to be raised with the department of Trade, who talk to Foreign affairs, who would then talk to the EU (possibly via the WTO), who would then pass it down the food chain the other side. And knowing how governments work that means it would be six months to year before anything gets done (in the best of circumstances), by which stage most SME’s will have run out of operating capital and gone bust, rendering the whole argument moot.

So anyone in UKIP deluded enough to think that leaving the EU won’t have a negative economic impact (for some crazy reason some seem to think it will have a positive impact!) is living in cloud cuckoo land.

Climate liabilities
Its becoming increasingly difficult for climate change deniers to counter the weight of evidence in support of anthropogenic climate change. Increasingly deniers are forced into relying on crack pot conspiracy theories that often accuse scientists of being part of some giant global conspiracy. When its pointed out to them that such claims are libellous, they promptly retreat behind the bastion of free speech, that they are usually very quick to deny their critics, on issues such as gun control for example.

However, a court in Canada has now ruled that no, this isn’t a free speech issue, such comments are libellous and has awarded a cash settlement to a climate scientist who had been accused by a tabloid of having “a warmist agenda”. This case does have much wider implications, notably as a much larger and more significant case is looming between Micheal Mann and the Republican CEI and National Review.

It is perhaps worth reflecting on the fact that what shut the tobacco lobby up wasn’t government legislation, but a constant barrage of expensive litigation. Could we be seeing the start of the same for the fossil fuel lobby?

US Measles epidemic
There’s a measles epidemic ongoing in the US. While infection rates are low so far (as in “only” a few thousand) but one of the problems with this disease is its highly contagious nature and hence its ability to spread like wildfire. This is having all sorts of implications, with health advice to avoid bringing kids to parks, public areas or daycare centres.

And just so we’re clear, measles is not a harmless disease. While many of those reading this blog, who got measles before vaccines were widely available, may not have suffered serious ill effects. Keep in mind that globally, measles kills tens of thousands per year. So the advice would be, vaccinate you’re kids and get vaccinated yourself if you’re not sure you’ve had it.

Who do we have to blame for this? Well, all of these tinfoil hat wearing anti-vaccine types…who seem to have a habit of also being climate change deniers as well as believing in other crack pot conspiracies (MH17, 9/11 was a setup, Kennedy, etc.). Are they willing to admit their error? well no, of course not!

Ultimately one could argue the real disease here isn’t measles, but a condition called Republican Mental Lock-in Syndrome :crazy:. Whereby, those on the right can’t admit that they are wrong about anything, ever. Even when confronted with overwhelming evidence to the contrary, they will instead perform acts of extreme mental gymnastics to concoct all sorts of outlandish conspiracy theories to satisfy their ego.

Scary Nukes
An ongoing story that’s some elements of the US media have been ignoring is the state of America’s nuclear weapons. Crippled by funding and obsolete and maintenance hungry equipment, questions are being raised as to the safety and reliability surrounding America’s nuclear arsenal. Some stories talk of blast proof doors propped open with a crow bar (as the mechanism has failed), of missile units with only one set of tools (so they can only do maintenance on one missile at a time….they have to Fed Ex the tool kit around and hope it doesn’t get lost in the post when a war starts!). Oh, and apparently the computers that arm the missile rely on floppy disks….and I mean the really big old floppies! 88|

To make matters worse, morale within the US nuclear weapons program is very low. :zz: Largely because if you want to kill your career as a US officer, the surest way to do so, is to go on Armageddon watch. While you’re fellow officers are getting that all important front line experience, or learning new skills (useful in their future career outside the military), you’re stuck in a bunker underneath hicksville, playing solitaire while surrounded by equipment that should have become museum exhibits many decades ago. Indeed one has to question whether its such a good idea to put clinically depressed officers in charge of the nukes? |-|

Either way, so long as country’s like the US choose to have nuclear weapons, they have an obligation to maintain these weapons in a safe and secure manner. And personally I’d question the point of spending hundreds of billions on a weapon system you don’t plan on ever using. And if the US, or other superpowers, are unable to maintain their stockpiles then they have invalidated their right retain them.