Extraordinary set of charts in the FT today. Twelve years of Tory misrule has left us sicker and poorer than our peers. Utterly disastrous.
(Charts via
@JolyonMaugham
and
@GeorgePeretzKC
)
Some Tory on
#r4today
: "no other developed economy has a top tax rate as high as 45%"
🇮🇹 43%
🇩🇪 45%
🇫🇷 45%
🇪🇸 45%
🇳🇱 49.5%
🇸🇪 52.9%
🇩🇰 55.9%
He wasn't lying. He just didn't know, and his natural arrogance led him to say whatever he thought was right when really he had no clue.
Black & white. The Tories are going for no deal in order to try for a trade deal with the US, which would include privatising the NHS to US healthcare companies.
Very very positive to hear Ed Miliband on
#r4today
clearly articulating that the cost of living crisis was caused by our over-dependence on expensive fossil fuels and lack of home-grown cheap renewable energy.
First time I've heard a politician saying what actually happened
New housing development near me. The solar power provision is an absolute joke.
I expect it would cost more to fit a proper system than if they'd been built with nothing at all 🤦
Linden Homes are the guilty party
@Peston
Loads of people could have benefited from "socially distanced drinks" for the reasons given, particularly doctors and nurses. But they were illegal.
Germany 🇩🇪: 57% of new build homes fitted with heat pumps
UK 🇬🇧: 8% 🤦
Mandating no fossil fuel heating in new homes is a clear and easy win waiting to be had
Three in four homes in Germany still heated with fossil fuels -
@destatis_news
Heat pumps still making up only 7% of total but 57% in new builds in 2022, national census finds
@scottygb
That'll never be beaten because it was a presenter, not a guest, who said it.
Amazing to look back on that and think of chaos and horror we've suffered since.
@benrileysmith
@Telegraph
Have they forgotten losing a majority of over 20,000 in Tiverton and Honiton? Johnson is viscerally hated outside the Westminster bubble
@MattChorley
They nominated a clown. I don't really understand what these MPs are complaining about -- they got exactly who they nominated and campaigned for
With the wind power record excitement I almost missed that Viking Link was tested at full power yesterday and today.
The 765 km, 525,000 V, 1.4 GW power link from England to Denmark is the longest such link in the world
.
@TimesRadio
what the hell was that? You get
@dgurdasani1
on and then every time she begins talking,
@MattChorley
interrupts and talks over her.
What exactly do you think your listeners gained from that?
If you think you can't afford an electric car I'm willing to suggest that most who read this can
(Then as a bonus an EV is ten times cheaper per mile on a good smart tariff)
@BNHWalker
Lineker didn't compare the policy to that of the Nazis. He said some of the language around it was reminiscent of the period – and is correct
Typical British fossil car achieves around 40mpg; at these 👇 prices that's 17p per mile
A typical EV ⚡ achieves around 3.8 mi/kWh, charging on a smart tariff that's 2p per mile.
An EV is is >8x cheaper to drive
A bike 🚲 is even cheaper @ 0p/mile 🙂
.
@OctopusEnergy
is recruiting heating engineers and plumbers to train them to fit heat pumps.
This has all the makings of a recognisable, nationwide brand (the KwikFit of heat pumps) that I think is needed to produce a rapid transition to electric heating
@tamcohen
Oh my god. Deadly heat wave, impending gas shortage, soaring food and fuel prices... And he's off farting around having a joyride with the RAF?!
@AndyMcDonaldMP
@DehennaDavison
Seems to be heading towards becoming a police matter – if only the police and crime commissioner wasn't so preoccupied with becoming a Tory local councillor
I noticed this;
@bbcnickrobinson
referring to the ULEZ as a "green tax" when it isn't anything of the sort, it's a measure to remove the dirtiest vehicles from London's roads to stop children dying from asthma
@kateferguson4
Oh for goodness sake, you're being criticised because you repeated baseless gossip which was without a shred of evidence. Maybe... Don't do that?
I believe Great Britain set a record low grid carbon intensity value earlier today – an average of just 19 g of CO₂ per kWh generated.
The previous record was 21 g/kWh set just ten days ago!
At 5am Great Britain was exporting electricity on every interconnector into Europe (and pumping water up mountains). Don't see that very often
At that time wind was generating as much power as the gas turbines
The last section of cable of Viking Link has been laid and joined, forming a 765 km power line between UK and Denmark.
When commissioned in December it will give GB access to 1.4 GW of cheap Danish wind power.
The House of Commons library has produced a surprisingly thorough but still very readable explanation of how electricity prices are formed, and what reforms might be in the works
Wow. Contract specifically states that AstraZeneca will not be in breach of EU's contract if it needs to fulfill other orders first.
Cut and dried 🤷♂️.
@jessicaelgot
It's a dog-whistle to the 1-2% who believe in conspiracy theories.
For some extraordinary reason the advisors in No 10 think such appeals are a "route to victory". God alone knows how they're coming to such warped conclusions
From April Worcester Bosch are likely to offer £2,500 cash back to home owners and landlords on new heat pump installs. Combined with the £7,500 BUS grant it could be entirely possible to get a heat pump for free(!)
Not a single writer from the Guardian or the New Statesman (let alone Byline Times or the New European) in the top 13 non-politicians who has appeared on Question Time over the last ten years.
All but two are Telegraph/Spectator/Daily Mail/Times/Economist.
Apparently the Express ran a "solar panels being switched off in the heat" story yesterday. Here's the current generation mix in the Southwest, as temperatures exceed 30°C.
Do home batteries make sense?
Let's take the Octopus tariff combo with the biggest spread between import (7p) and export (15p), Intelligent Octopus Go (EV required) and Outgoing Fixed.
Cycling a 10 kWh home battery daily, with 10% round trip loss, would make 73p/d, £270/yr
🧵
@jjaron
I think the nay-sayers are missing the fundamental point: it would appear that we *can* produce a safe vaccine with at least a degree of effectiveness against a coronavirus.
We did not know this previously.
@BobbyFriedman
@cgwOMT
I still can't believe that the press criticised Brown for hand-writing a letter to the family of each and every service man and woman who died defending our country. Brown was a very very decent man.
Thérèse Coffey on
#r4today
: "I think the free school meals income limit might even be higher in England than Scotland." Guess what?
England: £7,400
Scotland: £7,920
Yet again, a Tory who doesn't actually know just makes sh*t up according to their dogma.
Kate Morely's is reporting that over the last 12 months Great Britain obtained more of its electricity from zero-carbon renewables (wind, solar, hydro) than from fossil fuels
I think this might be a first ✌️🎉🥳
@poppyeh
Oh dear god.
Labour was described as being "1 mm to the left of the Conservatives" by a contributor to the World at One today and that sums them up perfectly.
@BenChu_
@OBR_UK
So OBR says the Treasury didn't answer their questions properly five months ago, and the OBR’s plan is to now ask them why they didn't? Sure, that'll work
@horton_official
She's not wrong. What I don't understand is how Tory strategists are arriving at the conclusion that going big on being pro-pollution is going to help them at the ballot box. It's just not popular.
@naomi_desouza
@JaneRockHouse
Tbf it's not not "managing its catastrophic finances", it's that BCC's statutory service requirements cost more than the funding central government is giving them.
@CliveWismayer
@martinwaller10
@catherinemginn
The video where Johnson said "there's no press here" into the lens of a TV camera crew. Tbf it was so stupid I don't think the media needed to say much. But Kuenssberg tweeting "this is him, here" about the father of the ill child Johnson was arguing with was v disrespectful.
@bobbidog
@Helen121
That's a really good point. The statement was made in a pre-recorded "voxpop" piece; a
@BBCr4today
presenter should have said afterwards "other OECD countries have rates of 45% or more..."
An interesting chart but there's more to it than meets the eye. The obvious question is: why does the ratio of electricity prices and gas prices vary so much?
The answers may surprise you...
🧵
What explains that some countries see a lot of heat pumps being installed whereas others lag behind?
Key factor is the 'spark gap' - the ration of electricity to gas prices.
I plotted heat pump sales per 1,000 households in 2023 against the spark gap.
See the correlation?
Ok ok 😂
My Garmin watch tells me I average ~35 kcal/mi. I'm mostly powered by bread/wheat in other forms but going by bread, it's £1.55 for 2,400 kcal.
So cycling is:
155/2400 x 35 = 2.2p/mi, about the same as an EV!
ngl that result surprises me! 😂
@dan_grey
I'm gonna be a bit picky but cycling isn't 0p/mile. When I cycle any distance I definitely eat a lot more food so that's got to be factored into the fuel cost per mile of cycling 😉
We know Boris Johnson is a misogynistic bigot. But that the police tried to deny that they had attended Carrie Symonds' house... That's something else.
I'm told the last ever UK coal train to a power station ran on 16 January. From now until final closure, Ratcliffe-on-Soar is burning its on-site stock
Lovely article on Ratcliffe, the UK’s last coal fired power station, which is due to close in September. I visited Ratcliffe about 15 years ago. It’s a real landmark, losing the towers from the skyline is a huge shame.
@NorthmanTrader
@elonmusk
But it's *lower* than 5%. Musk thought it was higher. Now he's learnt it's *lower*, the deal's "on hold".
Sounds more like trying to find a way out of the deal.
@JavierBlas
And as usual I point that just a few days ago...
You never mention days when wind is the largest generator of electricity. If it wasn't for wind we'd be burning far more very expensive gas.
What exactly is your point?!
@Phillip_Thomaz
@BBCFergusWalsh
The funny thing is that this is the result of openness. Moderna had Pfizer have never updated their numbers since the single snapshots from their US FDA trials last year.
Az has reported results from multiple trials all around the world, and updated results as they continue.
@T_Extinguishers
A Range Rover weighs twice as much as a normal car (e.g. a Golf). So in a crash they deliver twice as much energy.
They're absolutely lethal, and have no place on our roads.
@tomfenn8
@kallmemeg
I'm never sure how much that matters. Lots of people are elderly, lots have "co-morbidities". Many people don't have a choice over whether they have co-morbidities, and no-one choses their age!
@jessicaelgot
I'd love to meet "young people" having daily Starbucks and two overseas holidays a year!
I suspect the few who can afford that lifestyle have no issues affording a house
@leighsus
It would be quite good to have a simple explainer going back to when the South Tees Development Corporation CPO'd the site from Sahaviriya Steel Industries!
Fascinating visualisation from
@robhawkes
showing EVs charging on Intelligent Octopus over a week in June, alongside grid fossil/renewables mix and carbon intensity
Next Wednesday National Grid Energy System Operator is (again) lowering the minimal level of grid inertia which should allow an even lower amount of gas generation required to stay online during periods of high wind and solar output 😍
NEW:
Britain’s grim winter of strikes, falling incomes and a worsening NHS crisis is not some unfortunate series of events
It’s the inevitable result of a decade of Tory austerity that steadily weakened the state’s capacity to respond to shocks
Thread:
Just had a Labour election leaflet through my door. On the front is a qr code link to a survey. Look at the first question. Look what's missing!
There was no "other" option. That's the complete list 🤦🙄😥
The array of import and export tariffs available from
@OctopusEnergy
is bewildering and inexplicable... Throw everything at the wall and see what sticks?!
Bizarrely you can charge a battery for six hours a day paying 7.5p/kWh then export it at 15p/kWh
H/t
@norfolkmustard