Ian Crow Multimedia Limited. Local media company observing the stuttering Midlands Engine! Quote and Retweets NOT an endorsement.
Birmingham
Joined March 2015
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Ian Crow Multimedia retweeted
I’ve been warning about the spike in diesel prices, followed by shortages of supply, for several weeks now. Especially if Trump goes along with an export ban. A third of the diesel we import is from America, which is the world’s biggest diesel exporter (1.5m b/d). There are no alternative sources of supply. A US export ban would throw us into recession by Christmas. The economy, from farm machinery to road haulage, is powered by diesel.
The UK currently holds only 42 days of diesel in its emergency stockpiles. While the UK stands at just 42 days, countries like Italy hold 347 days, the USA has 677 days and Canada and Japan maintain over 1,000 days of supply.
In the early 2000s, Britain held over 100 days of diesel reserves. However, as major domestic oil refineries closed down over the years, the country's massive storage tanks disappeared with them, leaving the UK heavily reliant on just-in-time imports.
That is the jeopardy facing every supermarket shelf, every hospital delivery, every harvest, every bin collection and every freight train that still keeps Britain functioning. And the system that supplies that fuel security has been allowed to grow dangerously thin.
Meanwhile the UK’s ability to make that fuel itself has been dismantled. From eighteen refineries in the 1970s to nine at the turn of the century, Britain is now down to just four: Domestic demand already exceeded refining capacity before those closures. The gap is filled by imports - more than half of the diesel that goes into British tanks.
This has happened through a long succession of terrible government choices and neglect that treated energy security as an afterthought. Carbon costs were loaded onto plants that operate here, while higher-carbon fuel could be imported without equivalent burden. Almost every government over the past 20 years helped to create this looming crisis.
Diesel is the engine room of the economy. And successive governments have allowed the tanks to run towards empty.
Shameful.
Ian Crow Multimedia retweeted
UK Pays Highest Borrowing Rate Since Records Began order-order.com/2026/09/09/u…
Ian Crow Multimedia retweeted
Every local road in Birmingham reduced to 20mph.
That’s what the Lib Dem & Green led council are proposing.
The relentless war on motorists must end.
Ian Crow Multimedia retweeted
Government guidance says that 20mph schemes should not be introduced as blanket measures.
Yet Birmingham City Council plan to do exactly that - reducing all local roads to 20mph.
Driving around Birmingham is already difficult enough. – at Birmingham, England
Ian Crow Multimedia retweeted
While rejoicing, spare a thought for the fact that unless you're hit by lightning or sucked into a hay baler, nobody will ever know you lived.
Ian Crow Multimedia retweeted
I am bewildered, and not very impressed, by the visceral, naked, irrational hatred spat out by some defenders of Jason Arday. If a Cambridge professor is accused of being an unqualified charlatan, the accusation might be racially motivated. On the other hand it might not, depending on the evidence. The correct question to ask is not, ”What is the colour of his skin” but “Is it in fact true that he is an unqualified charlatan?” Please examine the evidence before leaping to the assumption of racism.
As for the idea that journalists “piled in on him” and “hounded him to his death”, most attacks were against Cambridge University. Jason himself was widely regarded as an unfortunate victim of foolish promotion way beyond his ability to cope. In appointing him to a professorship for which he was manifestly unqualified – in ludicrously describing him as “the best in the world” – certain senior members of the university showed a level of patronising condescension towards black people that could fairly be described as racism, while at the same time making him tragically vulnerable to such attacks as came his way.
Ian Crow Multimedia retweeted
It isn’t always worth working more.
Most people have an amount they’re willing to work for. Childcare costs, commuting, balancing work/leisure, etc
If tax takes net pay below that, many people won’t work. 1/2
Ian Crow Multimedia retweeted
You have more chance going to Mars then UK ever challenging China domination of clean tech. Your 300,000 jobs involves a wide definition that includes jobs Greens not usually enthusiastic about or have existed for years eg in nuclear power. Jobs in renewables under 150,000. A fraction of the 1.4m jobs lost in industry this century in large part thanks to energy policies you support lumbering us with the highest industrial energy costs in the world.
Ian Crow Multimedia retweeted
Sandwell Insight: 320 Pages, Plenty of Questions – Now We Wait to Se... darrylmagher.blogspot.com/20…
🤖 Made with AI
Ian Crow Multimedia retweeted
Sandwell Council has launched its new Tenant Engagement Strategy.
Lovely words. Nice graphics. Big promises.
Tenant voice.
Transparency.
Accountability.
“What you told us – what we did.”
Tenant scrutiny.
Tenant approved documents.
SCIPS.
TRAs.
Panels.
Forums.
The full Sandwell engagement bingo card.
But here is the real question for tenants and residents:
Will it actually change anything?
Because tenants do not need another glossy PDF quietly filed away after the launch photos are taken.
They need answers.
Where is the action plan?
Where are the KPIs?
Where are the Tenant Auditor Group reports?
Where are the Council responses?
Where is the public tracker showing what tenants raised and what changed?
Where are the repairs figures?
Where are the complaint-handling improvements?
Where is the proof?
This matters especially for anyone involved in a Tenants and Residents Association.
If the Council says it wants tenant voice, then TRAs need to use that promise. Ask for the data. Ask for the action log. Ask what changed after your concerns were raised. Ask who owns the issue. Ask when it will be fixed.
Engagement should not mean tenants being invited into a room to be spoken at.
It should mean tenants being listened to, taken seriously and shown clear evidence of change.
Sandwell Council has now put the promises in writing.
Now it needs to show the receipts.
Read the blog here:
darrylmagher.blogspot.com/20…
#Sandwell #SandwellCouncil #TenantEngagement #TenantVoice #CouncilHousing #HousingRepairs #TenantRights #TenantScrutiny #TRAs #SCIPS #SandwellCIPS #HousingAccountability #PublicAccountability #WhatYouToldUsWhatWeDid
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Ian Crow Multimedia retweeted
Delusional. It’s a £45 cut in the average annual household fuel bill. Offset by a £50 increase when the price cap is raised Oct 1st. So a net negative of £5. Nobody is going to move to EVs or heat pumps on that basis.
Slashing VAT on electricity bills is not only a further step in the right direction for households, coming on top of the £150 removed from bills at the last Budget.
But it's also a move in the right direction to support decarbonisation. Lower electricity bills will support a shift to EVs and heat pumps, both massive components of the net zero transition.
Ian Crow Multimedia retweeted
The result has been dramatic. There were 1.7 million higher rate taxpayers in 1990. There are 7.6 million now, and on current policy there will be nearly 9 million by 2030-31:
Ian Crow Multimedia retweeted
URGENT: ROUNDUP SPRAYING ON RATTLECHAIN-LINKED LAND — COUNCIL ASKED TO INTERVENE NOW
Reports have come in that a tractor has been on land off MacDonald Close / Gladstone Drive cutting and spraying vegetation with Roundup / glyphosate.
This is not some routine bit of tidying up.
This is a sensitive brownfield / wildlife site linked to the wider Rattlechain, Sheepwash, Oldbury and Green Spine corridor, with known concerns around rare plants, pollinators, invertebrates, butterfly habitat and local ecological value.
And this has reportedly happened:
📷 in July, during the active growing, breeding and pollinator season
📷 with no proper public notice seen
📷 no visible ecological method statement
📷 no obvious risk assessment available to residents
📷 no clear explanation from the landowner or agents
📷 no confidence that the ecological value of the site has been properly protected
Let’s call this what it looks like:
Site conditioning.
Cut it.
Spray it.
Kill the flowers.
Remove the habitat.
Then later pretend the site has “low ecological value”.
That trick has been played far too often on brownfield wildlife sites.
Sandwell Council has now been asked to intervene urgently, inspect the site, demand the spray records, check the risk assessments, verify operator competence, establish what product was used, and stop any further damage while this is properly investigated.
This is especially serious given all the public talk from councils and WMCA about nature recovery, biodiversity, green spaces, and protecting wildlife.
You cannot launch glossy nature strategies one week, while sensitive local habitats are being chemically suppressed the next.
If this land has ecological value, rare plant interest, butterfly habitat, pollinator value, SLINC links or wider corridor importance, then the public deserve answers.
Nature recovery cannot just be a press release.
It has to mean protecting the awkward places too — especially when developers start circling.
Sandwell Council: please act now, secure the evidence, stop further spraying, and tell residents exactly what is going on.
#Rattlechain #Sheepwash #Sandwell #Oldbury #Roundup #Glyphosate #NatureRecovery #Biodiversity #GreenSpine #MoreWoods #Pollinators #Butterflies #BrownfieldBiodiversity #EnvironmentalJustice #SandwellCouncil #WMCA #StopTheSpray #ProtectOurWildlife
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Ian Crow Multimedia retweeted
The case for public ownership is strongest when we’re talking natural monopolies. Even then taxes need to rise to pay for costs/losses and all the capex required. Of course that rarely happens. Instead state-owned monopolies are starved of investment as politicians prioritise more immediate needs eg welfare spending, public sector pay etc. That’s exactly what happened in ALL the state-owned industries/services between 1945 and 1980.
I don’t care how “efficient” the private sector is.
Some services should never be run as businesses.
Health care. Water. Electricity. Gas. Prisons.
If a company makes more money when people get sicker, stay locked up longer, or have no choice but to pay, that’s a system built on conflicting interests.
Ian Crow Multimedia retweeted
Red Lion in JQ reopens tomorrow 5pm after a whopping cash injection from Joules. Looks smart off first impressions. Glad someone is taking care of the pub again 🖤
Ian Crow Multimedia retweeted
Andy Burnham is now taking a few questions, albeit in highly controlled circumstances. He’s coming across as a bit Forrest Gump: well-meaning, naïve, uninformed.
So let’s get real. Here’s a proper question about a huge issue.
There are almost 11m people of working age in the UK who are economically inactive.
Yet Skills England reports that construction is short of 1m workers to meet the current infrastructure and housing targets — and that’s before you include Mr Burnham’s plans for a massive council house building programme.
It’s a clear sign of a labour market — skills shortage AND huge inactive labour pool — not functioning properly.
It needs to be put right before we have any chance of decent growth.
So, Mr Burnham, what would you do to put it right?
Ian Crow Multimedia retweeted
‘Neo-liberalism’ and ‘trickle down’ are just buzz words of know nothing pontificators. They use them because they think it makes them sound smart. It doesn’t. And they are unbecoming someone about to become prime minister. We deserve deeper, more considered analysis.
Ian Crow Multimedia retweeted
Plenty of photos over the weekend.
Plenty of councillors smiling for Armed Forces Day.
Plenty of “proud to attend”, “honoured to support”, “we stand with our veterans” and all the usual civic warm words.
Lovely.
Now let’s have the follow up.
Sandwell Council has an Armed Forces Covenant. It talks about support, partnership meetings, action plans and making sure the aims of the Covenant are followed.
So where are the minutes?
Where is the action plan?
Where are the KPIs?
Where are the reports showing what has actually been done for veterans, reservists, serving personnel and armed forces families in Sandwell?
Respect is not just turning up for a photo once a year.
Respect is delivery.
Read the blog here:
darrylmagher.blogspot.com/20…
#Sandwell #ArmedForcesDay #ArmedForcesCovenant #Veterans #Reservists #MilitaryFamilies #SandwellCouncil #CouncilScrutiny #Accountability #LocalGovernment #ReformSandwell
darrylmagher.blogspot.com/20…
Ian Crow Multimedia retweeted
I don’t think they’ve considered, for a second, how disconnected from the electorate this little tableaux is - complete with the Chancellor in shot, vying for a job no doubt.
It’s also, classless, only a few hours after their leader and PM fell on his sword.
This won’t end well.
Ian Crow Multimedia retweeted
A welcoming present just out this morning for a Mr A Burnham to underline just how limited his latitude as PM will be:
The UK government borrowed £23.3 billion last month, 30 per cent or £5.4 billion higher than a year earlier.
It was also more than the £18.8 billion expected by most economists and the £17.7 billion forecast by the Office for Budget Responsibility, the UK’s independent fiscal watchdog.
The interest payable on government debt rose to £11.7 billion, the highest ever recorded in any May.