As Richard North sagely notes this morning, the most important priority with budgets is to watch what the chancellor is doing with his other hand or behind his back. Wee Georgie slipped in the news that the government was chillingly pressing ahead with plans to triple investment (to £3bn) in the Green Investment Bank, and also to put an insane floor on the cost of UK CO2 emissions. So the 1p fuel duty “relief” has to be seen in the context of intensifying plans to create more fuel poverty, ratchet up domestic fuel tariffs and to add more layers to the bureaucratic straitjacket that is crippling British enterprise and innovation. Richard Black, of course, is worried that this is not enough. He goes for his hectoring quotes first to an outfit called Transform UK, which is a predictable alliance of green fascists on the make. Next stop is EDF energy, one of the companies that is at the forefront of conning us about so-called green energy investment. And finally, of course, he brings in John Sauven, of Greenpeace UK, to warn that – despite Mr Osborne’s craven acceptance of the need for spending billions more on green lunacy – his tactics amount to suicide and a failure to meet green policy promises. Anything that attacks a Tory chancellor will do.
As usual, Mr Black ignores any opinion that might suggest alternatives, and funnily enough, I especially don’t see a quote there from groups representing those such as pensioners and the poor who are facing continuing needless hardship as a result of all this idiocy and profligacy.
Has Mr. Black decided to retreat from the defensive bunker of ‘watertight oversight’ to the near immune position of ‘broadcast only’?
I just ask as his blog, which admittedly can sometimes attract inconvenient alternative viewpoints that it is proving a bit obvious to mod or close out now, seems to have stalled at Bees.
And I am pretty sure there has been some news in the enviro arena of note since, albeit one he and the BBC may not wish to be challenged upon.
I can recall that, not too long ago, Mr Black’s blog was frequented only by sycophants and toadies. How he must long for those days, when blogging was easy because everyone agreed with him.
I think it was about the time of Climategate when the sceptics found their voice and made the comments a much more entertaining (and informative) read – at least for the first few entries before the inevitable disintegration into “no it isn’t, yes it is” types of argument.
Oh, and speaking of suicide…
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/dailypolitics/andrewneil/2011/03/more_inflation_to_come.html#comments
1 day, 12 posts. This entry is now closed for comments Again.
Just saying.
I think Mr. Neil is on the naughty step again.
Interesting that most of the people at Transform UK happen to be involved in the business of making profits in the green energy industry. So they have a vested financial interest in forcing the public away from using oil. Follow the money: it’s more than an advocacy group.
Black is betting nobody will notice, and think that their hearts are in the right place so the fact that they will make evil, greedy profit off this is unimportant.
The folks at Transform UK not only get loads of taxpayer cash via government subsidies, but also get to use the state broadcaster to encourage you to give them even more.
Ah, Mr Black has posted again. He must have heard us talking about him.
Including this: “There are plenty of analyses around suggesting climate targets can be met through efficiency and renewables alone – Greenpeace’s is one of them…”
Yes, well that’s a bit like saying “There are plenty of analyses suggesting that immigrants are bad for the country – the BNP’s is one of them”, but I can’t quite see that happening.