Thoughts, opinions, ideas, and whimsy from an aspirational polymath
Going through my old photos (and also realising that I hadn’t posted here for too, too long) I found a few classics from the General Election. Some of them ended up pretty rubbish and some shall not be shared, but there is one that just … tickles me. So caption contest time please!
Last Friday, in an attempt to inject a bit of substance to the political debate on Twitter, we organised a day of positive politics for Mother’s Day. And as you can tell from the title of the post, it went extremely well.
First I was delighted with the general uptake: from each and every side of the political spectrum people were anxious and willing to join in; and reassuringly we even attracted Twitterers who had been alienated by the tone of the debate recently. Perhaps our the greatest achievements were the decision by #labourlost to suspend tweeting for 24 hours [thank you!] and the involvement from the political establishment. This was a sentiment that many people were genuinely interested in and receptive to; a sentiment that reflects the peril of the Bubble and how detached from reality the day-to-day mudslinging is.
Second we had a fantastic impact. Not only did Tweetminster detect the change in sentiment but my own very crude analysis of my feed and the #positivepolitics hashtag reflected this. Simply stated: Twitter was a more positive place when it came to politics on Friday. So well done to everyone for that. In fact we can go a little further: since there was a greater engagement from the Conservative half of the Twittersphere, we saw greater positivity come through in their numbers.
On the other hand it was somewhat disappointing to see the lengths that some people would go to avoid it. As a whole most of the MPs were extremely receptive towards the idea with a single exception. On balance the Labour crowd was less willing to engage — and indeed seemed happy to gleefully misinterpret the sentiment behind it! — and we can see this reflected by their less positive sentiment scores. As anyone who has followed my protests at stat-abuse will know, I’m extremely wary of drawing conclusions from a single event as there are a number of unique contributing factors that can skew it; however combined with a quick analysis of the last two months of my timeline, I respectfully submit that after Friday we have the evidence to suggest that if any party is deserving of the “Nasty Party” tag it is certainly not the Conservatives or their supporters.
I was really grateful and touched to receive so much support for this — a campaign started simply because the tone of the political debate on Twitter had descended to the lowest, most childish, form of name-calling — and I’m deeply reassured to discover that I’m not the only one out there. I think that the Great British electorate is a bit fed up of name-calling; of point-scoring; of negative, non-issues-oriented campaigning: we here; we’re engaged; and we want to hear how you intend to fix the status quo, not how the other party is going to break it. All of the parties were able to come up with good ideas (in the end) and all of the parties had supporters willing to support ideas from other parties. We were even content to let the latest shameful example of expenses abuse pass without too much comment!
To everyone who showed that it is possible to have a grown-up difference of opinions on the internet: a massive thank you. You know who you were, and you did a great job. We did it [link NSFW].
And this is for all of you.
I never cease to be astounded and dismayed by the level of partisanship on Twitter. Over the last couple of weeks I’ve dropped in and out on some truly shameful “conversations”: fueled by the latest scandal and whipped on by MPs who really should know better, thousands of horrible, snide, vicious tweets have been sent: tweets that bypass the basis of the argument and delve straight into mud-slinging.
Of course we all do it to a greater or lesser extent. However there is a difference between an honest and passionate argument and just being rude, a difference that we can all recognise when we see it. One of the things that I think (particularly the younger members of) the Twittersphere forgets to ask is: would you say this to someone’s face? A search over the last few BBC Question Time Tweets would show you the particularly inane, and often just plain rude, examples of a “robust political debate” as I’m sure it’s perpetrators would term it. I read these and the question that springs to mind is: do you kiss your mother with that mouth?
In all seriousness, I’m worried: I’m worried that this is becoming the norm; I’m worried that this is becoming the accepted, mainstream tone of the political debate on Twitter. This really concerns me: not just because I find it distasteful and childish and symptomatic of the worst part of politics; but because this is not what grown-up politics should be about. The population of the country on Twitter is small; the population also interested in Twitter is smaller still — but it is the grassroots, passionate part. And slowly we are inculcating them with the sense that this the good and right in political debate. We have brainwashed them into politics of the populist, demagogic type.
Well, I say enough. It’s time to re-engage with the issues. Spurred on by the excellent “Positive Policy” series arranged by Steve (@OxfordSpring), and encouraged by the warm reception so far, I want to reclaim the political Twittersphere for those of us who are actually interested in politics. And I think that Mother’s Day serves as a perfect holiday for this landmark.
My original plan was to inoculate against the invective with a whole weekend of positivity: a moratorium on political attacks for two days. Of course this is too long for Twitter. So my call to action is this:
This Friday, March 12th, I would like everyone to try to ensure that all their political tweets are positive. No mudslinging. No personal, ad hominem, attacks. No “#ivenevervoted…”; no “#labourlost”; no “#toriesout”. No straw men. If you must say something political, say something positive or at least grounded in reality. Don’t even mention the party you don’t plan on voting for. We can even use the #positivepolitics tag.
And anyone who’s bad will have a note sent to their mother.
This was an article originally posted here as part of a series on Positive Policy organised by Steve Conyers (@OxfordSpring). The series continues on House Of Twits; and has so far covered Tax, Immigration, Foreign Policy, Localism and Smaller Government.
For at least as long as I remember the Conservative party could be characterised as a party divided by Europe. Prospective leaders have always had to make their positions clear: party orthodoxy has been euroscepticism, and the party will impose it’s litmus tests. Europe even played a part in the most recent leadership contest, and Mr Cameron was conspicuous by his conformity.
But Mr Cameron went further than his recent predecessors as leader of the Conservative Party. Last year, Mr Cameron withdrew the Conservative MEPs from the EPP, the mainstream centre-right coalition in European politics, and formed a new right wing group, the ECR. This decision appeared short-sighted from a narrow, political perspective as he risked isolation and impotence in Europe; and troubling (albeit politically expedient given the UKIP threat) from a broader ideological perspective as he appeared to drag the Conservative party towards its Eurosceptic wing. But perhaps the greatest cause for concern was his choice of partners in this bold new venture: very right-wing politicians, predominantly from Eastern Europe, and often with less than savoury reputations. As a moderate, pro-European Conservative, these impressions deeply concerned me.
Strangely, the “optics” are at least as troubling as the decision itself. At its simplest, it appeared to be a desperate sop to the more reactionary wing of his party: a clumsy attempt to lure back voters lost to UKIP. Symbolically it was even more troubling: Mr Cameron appeared to be signalling publicly and internationally that actually he was more ideologically aligned with his new friends than with his more traditional (and, one would hope, his more “natural”) allies across Europe such as M Sarkozy. It also signalled that perhaps Mr Cameron wasn’t going to be the pragmatist he insisted: perhaps the boy wonder was more right-wing than we had suspected.
Most peculiarly it was a reactionary move that appeared to be out of step with Mr Cameron’s otherwise progressive agenda and the mood of the voters he is trying to court. As a country we have become more liberal socially and more conservative economically — perhaps a cultural counterpart to the entrenchment of the NHS and the City into the mainstream. Culturally we have become more European even as economically we have become more Atlanticist.
Perhaps Mr Cameron was relying on the received wisdom: apparently Britain is more Eurosceptic than most of Europe. It’s easy to understand this attitude, as there are significant problems with Europe which the media are more than willing to let us know about. Brussels was long the pinnacle of tax-payer funded excess. It’s inefficient, bureaucratic and curiously unaccountable. Moreover, there is the fear of Federalism; that we should no longer be Sovereign.
However there are so many brilliant things that have come out Europe that improve our life in Britain. Some are small conveniences, some are fundamental: everything from the ease of taking a tour around Central Europe through to the intangible and difficult to quantify impact of a prosperous Europe on our day-to-day lives. Moreover, operating within the framework of the EU is frequently in our best interests. The world is becoming smaller; and more and more agreements of greater and greater importance need to be made at the international level, including climate change legislation and working to contain the threat of Iran. Taking a more international approach to many problems in the future should help ease their economic footprint: it is encouraging to hear Dr Liam Fox is working to bring France back into NATO, for example; and a “Robin Hood” Tax could only work if implemented internationally.
All this is somewhat beside the point: there are many more issues of much greater importance and urgency facing the next Prime Minister than Europe. The Conservative position is frankly not of any consequence for the time being. In November last year a survey for the Times suggested that only 3% of voters ranked Europe as their most important issue – a number which I’m sure will have retreated further in the face of more pressing concerns. It is an issue of periodic importance, and even then only when we don’t have anything else more important to worry about.
But even if by some strange quirk Europe does become an issue, the Conservatives have a unique opportunity to dominate this issue; and should Mr Cameron win the election, he is excellently positioned to take a vital role in the future of Europe if he seizes the opportunity – and co-incidentally put to bed the decades-long European angst that afflicts his party.
First it is important to note that Mr Cameron has a lot of leeway on Europe. He can be vague and woolly. He blundered in offering The Sun a “cast-iron guarantee” that he would hold a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty — his hands are effectively tied on this — but that “blunder” allowed him to position himself at the more Eurosceptic end of his party and stem any potential losses to UKIP. By keeping to his previously announced positions, especially as they are sketched out on the Conservative party website, Mr Cameron sits firmly in the mainstream of British society; moreover no party can credibly challenge that position or seek to displace him from it.
In Europe the establishment is wary of Mr Cameron, no doubt as a consequence of his referendum guarantee and his withdrawal from the EPP. Indeed, a victorious Mr Cameron will have serious clout: as a newly elected Prime Minister he has a mandate, the threat – or, if necessary, the result – of a referendum, and a not insignificant caucus in the European Parliament. Mr Cameron can go to Europe in the ascendency. This is why this is a golden opportunity to embrace Europe. By doing so, Mr Cameron can negotiate from a position of strength, particularly if he can ride his honeymoon period, and he has the opportunity to have his say and (whisper it) get his way. The fundamental principles of the European Union are perhaps less Atlanticist than he would like, but they are sound principles that are not at all against Conservative ideology.
Mr Cameron runs under circumstances unique to modern Conservative leaders, and this applies more than ever to Europe. He has bought himself some room and some time: partly through his own manoeuvres, partly through missteps by his political foes, partly through chance. If he is bold, he has a chance to shift the existing paradigm enveloping the Conservative party on Europe; and if he is prepared to accept the reality of our place in Europe and work from within, he will have sewn this issue up for the foreseeable future.
OK, OK, this is a little bit of a filler whilst I put together some real posts. And get ready for my little brother’s big birthday tomorrow. But I thought I would share with you what I’ve been reading (not all for the first time) since Christmas, and hopefully you can all suggest some good ones for me to take up for February. Comments please!
My Shit Life So Far — Frankie Boyle
The Wings of a Dove — Henry James
Theodor Adorno: Key Concepts — ed. Deborah Cook (hardcore, but fascinating so far)
The Graveyard Book — Neil Gaiman
Unseen Academicals — Terry Pratchett (an indulgence)
Bill Hicks: Memoirs — Bill Hicks (genius)
The Thought Gang — Tibor Fischer
The Golden Gate — Vikram Seth
So as I say — suggestions, please, before I end up re-reading even more!
Everyone in the newspaper industry in particular and the media more generally seems to be obsessed with introducing a pay-wall: forcing consumers to pay to consume their content. I’m sure that this has been inspired by Rupert Murdoch — although I would suggest that collaborating to apply a pay-wall appears desperately crooked. Just a thought, chaps.
However there are other reasons why this is going to fail spectacularly. And no, I’m not talking about the fact that nearly all of the money Mr. Murdoch has realised on his foray into the UK newspaper scene comes from the physical properties that came with the companies: the man is making money out of newspapers however he does it, which is considerably better than most of his competitors. I’m talking about those great bastions of the left-of-centre establishment: the Guardian and the BBC.
Now I’m a huge fan of the BBC. Yes it has it’s institutional problems, as I cover here; problems quite separate from it’s content offering and mainly down to it’s inflated administration. The news in particular is very good. Some may argue that it has a liberal bias. I would say more correctly that whilst the institution itself has a liberal bias, the news is generally objective with a mildly pro-British agenda (and let’s face it: Nick Robinson was notoriously a Conservative).
The Guardian is not great, in my opinion, although I do like it’s cricket coverage. Mind you I read anything to do with cricket, so that’s not saying a lot … It does have a distinctive, reflexive, left-wing bias which I personally find more than a little bit tedious and unthinking from time to time; it indulges itself with more navel-gazing than most; and it continues to employ “names” inappropriately: can I just make it abundantly clear that social media has not been around long enough for anyone to truly be a “guru” yet, let alone a self-proclaimed guru (I’m looking at you here, Bunz and Klass: you are affronts to your actual profession). Yet despite its tendency to sound like a petulant teenager, in the business of reporting the news it still does a very good job.
Back to the pay-wall. Now unless you are offering a really distinctive content with real, immediate value (such as the FT), or you have a particular columnist who attracts huge numbers of readers come-what-may, I don’t see how you can compete with The Guardian or the BBC. People won’t pay for what they can get for free without an extremely good reason.
Arguably the newspapers collaborated in their own demise, making this content freely available. But many smaller, often more niche, sites survive and thrive with completely free content. What the newspapers have really done wrong is cling on to their antiquated, out-moded modi operandi. Declining circulations started well before they freed up their content online: newspapers, actual printed newspapers, have been dying since the introduction of radio and TV, let alone the internet — and yet at each time they never fundamentally changed their models to cope, just juiced the old one that extra tiny amount.
I won’t discount the pay-wall. It will eventually, inevitably, be implemented (but not immediately despite what this make-weight at The Guardian “reports”). Some people will do quite well out of it: organisations with a true value proposition and individual columnists with large followings in particular; the last re-doubts of free content more generally. Greg Hadfield was right on the money last Friday at journalism.co.uk. The old model is already dead; the pay-wall will merely hasten it’s final demise. And unfortunately a whole generation of journalists (particularly the real ones rather than the cosseted columnists) is in peril unless there is a huge change in the business of journalism.
Now fortunately there is a new model out there, which has the flexibility and scalability to cope with the pay-wall and offers a lot more for the individual journalists. It can even make money under a free model. But that is going to be saved for my next post.
The controversy over Banker’s bonuses continues to rumble on — I saw in the Evening Standard today that Boris Johnson, present Mayor of London, has decided to write to the heads of the banks expressing his surprise. (Gosh!)
Now obviously as staunch defender of the free-market I had found myself a little torn: I believe that bankers deserve to be compensated fairly at a rate determined by an independent market. Fortunately I happened to be digging around and stumbled across my notes from Baroness James’s wonderful evisceration of Mark Thompson, and I think I may well have found a way to reconcile my anger and disappointment at the Banks’ behaviour with my support of a strong financial sector and a free market. Initially the comparison may seem a little strange, I will grant you. But I think that it indicates wonderfully the myopic and clouded view at the top of both professions — and why we should reject their views as downright wrong and frankly untenable.
First, the BBC; and in fact the media more generally. Mark Thompson justified some of the outrageous salaries paid to various administrative and management professionals in particular by saying that he had to pay market rate to attract top talent. I won’t dispute that, but I would dispute his claim that what he is paying is a free market rate. You see, the BBC is the 500lb gorilla in this picture: it distorts the market away from optimal behaviour. It over-pays it’s middle to top management, a management now distorted and bloated beyond the size that any of it’s “competitors” are capable of supporting. It has the fringe benefits of one of the “attendant civil services” (as I have called them before): great benefits, weak management, great pensions, and of course the kudos of working with one of the world’s leading broadcasters. One of my friends works there in a junior, creative role (that is, she creates vital content for them). She took a pay-cut to take the job — not something any of her “superiors” did, I suspect.
But because of this distorting presence, other broadcasters in particular, and the media industry in general, have been forced to scramble to keep up. Salaries have had to rise enormously to attract BBC talent away from their jobs-for-life. The media world, particularly in these exalted circles, is small to the point of incest; “talent” circles round and round; their market value snowballs thanks to the incompatible pay and benefit structures. Put bluntly, the market which Mark Thompson tried to defend does not exist: it is a figment of his, and his predecessors and competitors, making.
On the other hand we have the banks. Now I’m not sure that, under the terms of their contracts and the conditions of the market when they were hired, that there were that many bankers who ended up receiving more than they were entitled to receive. In fact I suspect that many “earned” their bonuses over this past year. Conventional wisdom, interestingly most vocally expressed by senior bankers, is that again they have to pay a fair market rate in order to retain their “talent”. But again this is a spectacularly myopic and self-serving interpretation of the facts. Can I please take this opportunity to remind any bankers who may read this (not many I imagine) that banks-worth of your colleagues were laid off following the collapse of Lehman Brothers? These bankers, who would presumably quite like their old jobs back (albeit with suitably reduced salaries), offer quite the buyers market when it comes to acquiring talent. I know of a couple who would jump at the chance, understandably feeling that they were caught up in a problem well beyond their control.
This of course neatly side-steps the question of the bonuses themselves, and whether they were merited. Now in my line of work, as I imagine is true for everyone who is not a BBC manager or a banker and is still reading, bonuses are paid if you meet given targets: they are not guaranteed or ring-fenced (I don’t know, maybe I’m naive on this point?). So perhaps we shouldn’t even be calling these bonuses, or treating them as bonuses. Even if we do, and even if we do want to pretend that they deserve to be ring-fenced, I’m sure that they should only be paid if the institution in charge can afford it. Now last time I looked, the government owns RBS; and thanks to Gordon Brown’s and Alistair Darling’s chronic mismanagement of the economy they can no longer afford to pay these bonuses. And actually, when we say the government, we really mean you and me, and in fact everyone who pays taxes.
I’m not in a position to be able to judge whether or not these bankers have deserved their bonuses. And I’m not in a position to judge what the Managing Director of Paperclips at the BBC should earn. The problem is that the people at the tops of their respective professions, people who are incentivised to artificially inflate the value of their performance and that of their colleagues and competitors, are really the only ones who know; and in the banking and media worlds there are too few people at the top.
Fortunately in the case of the BBC there are a few external and independent people who can make this judgment: Baroness James is one, and her opinion was graphically clear. Mark Thompson would do well to listen and re-direct some of the ever-increasing license fee back into creating programmes. Hell, he doesn’t need to even achieve “success” in any real metric: in fact he is required to provide a certain percentage of “public interest” (or whatever it is called) TV; and despite what the “BBC Vision director” (or whatever her title is) implies, repeating is cheating in my book, especially with the existence of the iPlayer.
Similarly for the bankers we need someone to act as a Tsar; to perform a truly independent review of the market and lay down the law to the banks — our banks, no less. I have been trying to think who could do this … the danger is that anyone who the banks would accept would necessarily be tainted. Even Ken Clarke, for all his admirable qualities and relevant competencies, has too tight ties to the industry for it to be seemly.
Perhaps a frightfully senior judge, ideally a former Law Lord, might just fit the bill. Smart, independent, beholden to no-one, adept at analysing the finer points of extremely complicated arguments …
Oh dear. I think I may have just called for an independent judicial review. There must be a better way … over to you, my patient readers!
In case you missed it last night, please postpone reading this post until after you’ve had a chance to watch last night’s Question Time. Go on. This will still be here when you get back.
So you can tell me what you think in the comments, but as this is my blog I’m going to share my thoughts first.
And right in at number one: Shappi Khorsandi. Oh dear me. Not a good performance. Mind you, typical of anyone who is unthinkingly and reflexively left-wing. She’s clearly regurgitating half-formed opinions, but you would hope that a comedienne would have the wits to, you know, stick to a common theme. And have some experience at not sounding like an idiot in front of a live audience. Oh, and whilst we’re dealing with the make-weights: Kelvin, your “digestive” line was terribly stilted. And everyone knows Gordon Brown is more of an oatcake man …
Let’s move on quickly to the main event: Hain, Huhne, and Ken. And Dimbleby’s tie, loud enough to have it’s own outsized personality, but not really contributing an awful lot.
Actually on reflection I don’t even want to talk about perma-tanned Peter. He’s still a smug git. He’s still orange. He still has a wonderful ability to come across as a real-life David Brent. So really anything I say would be the same as anything I’ve said before.
But Chris Huhne, on the other hand … I actually quite like Chris Huhne, and I think a large part of it is because he strikes me as a really unusual LibDem. He’s coherent; he has presence; he handles himself extremely well. But more to the point I think it’s because deep-down he’s a little bit of a Tory. I will always remember the conference after the LibDems had select Nick Clegg as their leader wondering why on earth they hadn’t selected Chris Huhne (who, if I remember correctly, also lost out to Menzies Campbell), until my brother pointed out that even the LibDem membership didn’t think the party mattered and that they had ditched Charlie Kennedy as soon as he started edging them towards electability. I’m going to save my thoughts on that for later though.
But let’s face it, good as Huhne was, there was only one clear winner: Ken.
Now I know that Ken’s position on Europe is not going to endear him to the worryingly nationalistic view David Cameron seems intent on adopting; but as the debate wore on, it became more and more obvious that this man is still one of the Conservatives’ greatest assets. He has authority but isn’t condescending. He has an excellent turn of phrase. His QC background — a welcome change from the frankly paper-weight qualifications of some of his shadow cabinet colleagues — gives him that precious ability to instinctively hit upon the salient point of an argument.
Take for example his comment about the “presidential prime minister”. Absolutely spot on.
What I don’t quite get is: why is he languishing in the second-tier of the shadow cabinet? He’s more than qualified to take on practically any position there is: one of my friends, a self-confessed Thatcherite and an economist, believes that in point of fact it was his Chancellorship which fueled the early-New-Labour-era prosperity, rather than anything Gordon Brown might lay claim to. He has at various times served as the Home Secretary, the Health Secretary and the Education Secretary. He’s probably forgotten more about the mechanics of government than the rest of the current Parliamentary Conservative Party ever knew. It’s frankly incredible that he wasn’t even in the Shadow Cabinet until Alan Duncan’s fall from grace.
Even if we accept that David Cameron erroneously feels that he can’t have Ken in a front-line role, he has to make better uses of this evergreen politician. The best-run companies understand and prize the value of institutional knowledge; Ken has vast experience both as a politician and as a senior adviser to many companies. Incidentally, I would rather MPs went down this route and declared their outside interests than submitted their entirely fictitious expense claims, but that’s for another post perhaps (and a certain Glaswegian Labour MP gets very touchy if you so much as think about expenses in their presence). Give him a large, strategic role in the party; a role which will make the most of his prodigious talents.
Finally, the man himself is just one of those people who you just know is a hero. He’s a member of CAMRA. He smokes the finest of fine cigars; he drinks the best of the best whiskies. He’s a keen follower of cricket and football. He’s a Jazz fan. He’s the sort of person who would be guaranteed to make any social event better. If he were on Twitter … well, he would be a dryer, suaver version of Stephen Fry; probably with the finest Tweets in the world. Just imagine it! He’s perfectly suited to it.
Incidentally he’s looking incredibly svelte these days too.
I think I might have just a little bit of a man-crush on him.
This post has been inspired by two things: the first, more positive one, being a quote shared by Jasmine Conley (do follow her, by the way) and the second being Lord Lawson’s small-minded, small-C-conservative attitude — mainly inspired by the mercenary requirements of pimping his book, I suspect, despite the longevity of the campaign. Maybe it’s out in paperback shortly or something.
Of course in doing so he has abandoned any pretense of positivity; and completely ignores any related problems we can only really address by lowering our dependency on carbon. Moreover by refusing to come up with a positive solution, or even the framework for a positive solution, he has reverted to the worst type of Conservative: unimaginative, reactionary, and curiously sacrificing his economic principles for the sake of a quick quid.
Now I’m not going to get into the debate about climate change, although in the interests of fairness I will outline my position. Far better minds than mine with a far greater understanding of the facts have concluded that human-caused CO2 emissions are contributing in small but subtle ways to climate change. I see no reason to dispute their scientifically derived theories. Scientific theories are testable and tested: scientists hoping to prove something try their hardest to prove the opposite, and, most importantly, provide the means and methods for their results to be independently verified or refuted.
And to all those who have argued that our recent cold snap “proves” that Global Warming is a hoax (including, shamefully, some MPs): go and learn some science and stop embarrassing yourselves. Halfwits. It makes me so angry to see this ignorance so willfully and gleefully paraded. You are the British equivalents of Sarah Palin.
OK; deep breath. And remove the swearwords.
Anyway, back to Lord Lawson. His main argument against acting now on climate change is, from what I can determine, that it would be expensive and we can’t be 100% certain yet that it’s necessary. For someone who ran our Economy (not particularly well, admittedly) I find it wonderfully ironic that he completely ignores the Stern Report. Of course being a Tory politician of the old-school, mathematics is beneath his dignity; but surely he could have compared the cost of doing something now against doing something later? It’s really quite a simple risk calculation.
And his abandonment of free-market principles! This is the perfect opportunity for some “creative destruction” from the Schumpeter school of entrepreneurship (Mark I in particular). Investment into new technology is going to be the key (although that is admittedly more Mark II). And there’s so much to invest in.
One of the main problems with our current, outdated, national grid is that it is designed to work with a relatively small number of large power stations distributing power, and isn’t designed to cope with a large number of small power stations contributing a little. Changing this would be a significant boon anyway. Hell, even coming up with a new way of transporting energy using our current infrastructure would have a huge impact: our distribution system is highly inefficient (hence why the voltage is so high. A-level Physics that) and a shockingly large percentage of power is lost through resistance, escaping as … heat.
Then of course there is the power-generation itself: all “alternative energy” technologies are in their infancies and require investment. There is more than enough room for both State- and private-sector investment: it’s noticeable that Oil companies are re-launching themselves as energy companies, although I would love to find out whether there is any substance to this. And let’s think not be scared to think big. After all, we’re never going to get to Mars on a coal-fired rocket.
To abandon this … well, as someone who is young enough to have to pick up the tab for his generation’s profligacy, I’m nauseated. After having created this mess, they not only refuse to clean it up but they are actively trying to prevent someone else from cleaning it up.
I hope that the current generation of Conservative leadership stick to their current principles and don’t allow themselves to be cowed by this dinosaur into a cowardly, small-minded response. A recurring theme of my posts has been leadership: particularly that I think David Cameron is starting to grok* it, even as Gordon Brown flails around in increasing desperation. This is another leadership challenge, and a test perhaps of the positivity of his Conservatism. It’s also (potentially) a legacy-defining moment. Ignore the haters and do something about it before it’s too late.
*grok: to completely and intrinsically know something; to understand intuitively or by empathy; to establish rapport with.
