ProfDef retweeted
Wind and solar renewables can't deliver industrial heat, can't provide the feedstock to make ammonia and can't deliver power on demand. There really is no choice at all. Greenpeace are energy illiterate.
ProfDef retweeted
THE UK FISCAL POSITION A WEEK BEFORE THE BUDGET.
So we learned this morning inflation has jumped up, with the 1st Burnham-Healey Budget now a week away. But we also got the latest fiscal backdrop this morning. It’s not great.
The government borrowed another £24.5bn in September — £1.8bn more than last Sept and £1.9bn above both the OBR's March forecast.
In cash terms it's the second-highest Sept on record, behind only Covid year 2020.
Year-to-date government borrowing is just shy of £98bn. That's over £4bn less than YTD 2025 but £6bn more than the OBR forecast.
Why? Not because of a revenue shortfall. Tax receipts are £5.8bn ahead of forecast for the year so far (helped by inflation). At £90bn, September tax receipts were up 5.2% on a year earlier.
Spending is the problem, especially debt interest, which was almost £11bn in September — UP 16.6% ON A YEAR AGO, £2bn above OBR forecast and the highest September since records began in 1997.
Overall, YTD spending is almost £9bn above forecast. Debt interest accounts for £3.8bn of that and welfare benefits for £2.5bn.
The Labour government’s two Achilles Heels.
ALSO — net national debt has passed £3 trillion — 94.0% of GDP (over 100% on IMF measure, which allows for international comparisons).
So the UK fiscal position is being undermined by inflation and debt interest. The latest OBR forecast, out with the Budget, will be driven by both these factors. Could make for some dismal reading.
ProfDef retweeted
Your report predicted:
An immediate recession,
Soaring unemployment,
An emergency "austerity budget"
And some supergonorrhea.
Instead we got QE we didn't need because Mark Carney is a fanny and a political class which refused to accept the result.
ProfDef retweeted
🚨 Huh? … Burnham wants to join the EU’s internal electricity market (which we don’t need to do! ) … But Brussels wants something mental in return.
It wants payment for electricity market access. But it also wants a PERMANENT financial contribution from British taxpayers to help reduce ‘economic inequality between EU regions’
Yes, you read that correctly…. Even though we aren’t in the EU they are demanding we fund poorer countries so we can be as poor as them!
WE VOTED TO LEAVE I can’t believe this is happening.
ProfDef retweeted
You too can save £50 a month by spending £15,000 on HPs and insulation.
Sign up today!
Insulating Britain’s homes and investing in heat pumps would do more to cut the cost of living, create jobs and boost the UK’s economy than drilling for new oil @e3g
theguardian.com/environment/…
ProfDef retweeted
Yet another big blow to our farmers & a risk for UK food supplies.The government is stupid.Net Zero must be abandoned.
ProfDef retweeted
Brilliant! Just a little bit of context for this headline and article.
Another “independent” think tank has declared that Britain cannot cope with global crises unless we rejoin the EU
The Institute for Public Policy Research is a ‘progressive’ unelected organisation with deep Labour links, Miatta Fahnbulleh was even a director of policy there! Shes now the energy secretary! In charge of Net zero madness.
And look who funds this think tank (from its own figures)…
▪️Up to £750,000 from George Soros’s Open Society Foundation.
▪️Up to £775,000 from Quadrature Climate Foundation.
▪️Up to £350,000 from the European Climate Foundation.
▪️Funding from Labour Together.
▪️UNICEF UK, linked to the UN
It wants to build a strategy to persuade people to all change their mind and agree to re join. I think fear seems to be the main persuasion tactic.
ProfDef retweeted
Oh. My. Gosh.
Direct from Fauci's diary.
ProfDef retweeted
Oh brilliant … instead of cutting costs we’re going to fudge the system and risk even more taxpayers money on net zero projects the private sector won’t invest in!
She (naaa it will be a quango idea) wants to channel borrowing through the national wealth fund (er our money) so it isn’t counted as headline debt (pathetic)
And the Government wants UK pension funds to invest in UK infrastructure, including green projects.
All to keep the financially un viable Net Zero alive 🤡
ProfDef retweeted
Our politicians are increasingly little more than a bunch of pontificating pixies. They should be running the country without fuss or show instead of wasting time with this performative nonsense.
ProfDef retweeted
What a rude entitled bully Stephen Kinnock @SKinnock was tonight on #bbcqt .
Losing his rag and verbally attacking at a elderly Welsh woman , an audience member who had the temerity to question the failings of ‘ the old boys club ‘ of UK politics , which he assumed , included his father Neil Kinnock was disgraceful. The fact that he did so as the Secretary of State for Wales was utterly despicable and nasty , and as such he should not hold that office of state 😡
ProfDef retweeted
I found it hard to keep my cool in a question to the minister on Russian interference in the Brexit vote. It is an insult to Leave voters - but even more exasperating is the government's gaslighting with ministers going on about what Andy Burnham did or didn't say, when we all heard him!
ProfDef retweeted
We owe £3 trillion. We spend more on working-age benefits than we raise in income tax. Our social security budget is five times our actual security budget. And these two are pretending to be gap-year vloggers in Bangkok.
ProfDef retweeted
Oh it’s truly pathetic… France has agreed that Britain can be included in the EU’s ‘Made in Europe’ scheme. ( even though we are in sodding Europe)
And look what Labour has been instructed give away …
▪️Higher tariffs on Chinese electric cars.
▪️Alignment with FUTURE EU trade restrictions.
▪️Alignment with EU conditions on foreign investment.
▪️’Dynamic alignment’ following relevant EU rules as they change.
So Britain must surrender significant control over our own trade policy, which will increase costs for British citizens …. to qualify as EUROPEAN!
This is NOT what we voted for ‼️
ProfDef retweeted
No seriously, someone needs to sort this mess out.
We’re paying to generate electricity, paying NOT to generate it, and paying AGAIN to replace it.
Actually we spent £505 MILLION in balancing costs in September alone! And the annual bill could reach £8 BILLION by 2030!
this is not the future of cheap energy 🤡
ProfDef retweeted
UK 🇬🇧
The Drax net zero con-trick - where a massive polluter has become a net zero manipulator. Yet more net zero environmental destruction masquerading as “saving the planet”.
The Labour government is trying to force through an extension that would give Drax an estimated £1.8bn in taxpayer funded subsidies on top of the £11bn it has already received.
Drax has burned an amount of wood equivalent to 300 million trees. Burning wood creates 18% more CO2 emissions than coal.
And here’s the con trick: Drax is a sneaky way of exporting our CO2 emissions. We pay billions of pounds to cut down ancient forests in the US and Canada, ship the wood across the Atlantic in diesel tankers, then burn it in a Yorkshire-based power station.
And here’s the kicker - the CO2 emissions tally is not counted against the country that burns it, but the country that grows it. So Drax emissions are counted against the countries who grow and export the wood for Drax - like Canada and USA…not UK who burn it. So the UK can reduce CO2 figures by importing the burning wood grown elsewhere.
A gigantic net zero con-trick.
ProfDef retweeted
The biggest misunderstanding by the political class is that it is their job to tell people what to do. Their job is to provide the things we want and need. It's not their job to tell us what we should want or what we should need.
ProfDef retweeted
"Do they need sugary sodas to survive?"
"Some of them do."
Congressman grills a SNAP advocate who refuses to say Coca-Cola has no nutritional value for children. She opposed @SecKennedy's call to end taxpayer funding for sodas.
Hilarious viewing.