A selection of articles to accompany your own reading/study of A2 British Political Issues.
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Wednesday, 26 December 2012
Splits within the Conservative party over welfare reform: IDS vs. Osbourne
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/9762509/Iain-Duncan-Smith-has-to-win-the-day-in-the-Tory-war-over-welfare.html
Many of the most important political changes are the ones that never get announced. Like a shift in cloud cover that causes the ball to swing and suddenly brings about an apparently inexplicable clatter of wickets in a Test match, nobody notices before it’s too late.
One such invisible disruption has just taken place at the heart of the Coalition: George Osborne, the Chancellor, has quietly added the Department for Work and Pensions to his long list of responsibilities. Of course, Iain Duncan Smith, the Work and Pensions Secretary, remains formally in charge, but his departmental philosophy, finances and – most disastrous of all – the language of welfare reform, are all in danger of falling into the hands of the Chancellor.
An early indication that a takeover bid was in progress came in the Budget last March when the Chancellor announced, without consulting the Work and Pensions Secretary, or for that matter anyone else, that he planned to knock £10 billion off the welfare budget. Then Mr Osborne attempted to replace Mr Duncan Smith with a yes man.
At first, this plan went well. Mr Osborne told the Prime Minister that Mr Duncan Smith should go. David Cameron duly used the September Cabinet reshuffle to offer him another job. Mr Duncan Smith, very shaken, asked to go home and think about the move overnight.
He might conceivably have complied but for the fact that, while mulling over his conversation with the Prime Minister, he chanced to turn on Newsnight, where Daniel Finkelstein, political columnist and executive editor of The Times, was sounding off about the need to find a new work and pensions secretary. Now Mr Finkelstein is viewed around Westminster not only as a clever and charming man, but also as the most important public apologist for the Chancellor of the Exchequer, to whom he speaks very regularly and is believed to give advice. (Mr Finkelstein later denied having discussed Iain Duncan Smith with the Chancellor.)
Mr Duncan Smith, having heard Mr Finkelstein vent unfriendly opinions about his job prospects, resolved there and then to stay put. There matters rested for several months. Relations between the Treasury and the Department for Work and Pensions, never warm at the best of times, grew chilly. At the heart of the coolness was a difference in philosophy. Mr Osborne sees welfare reform as an accounting issue. Mr Duncan Smith, by contrast, has a deeper and richer vision.
A committed Christian, he ultimately understands his task in terms of human redemption. He does not believe that people are out of work because of their own fault. He believes that the vast majority are victims of a cruel system, partly created by Gordon Brown, which creates perverse incentives that encourage men and women to stay away from the job market. Mr Duncan Smith believes it is his life’s work to end this monumental tragedy, and to provide the best environment for the unemployed to find work and obtain the human dignity that a job brings with it.
Hence his so-called “universal credit”, a single system of payments to the out-of-work and poorly paid alike, which will end the anomalies and perverse incentives of the system inherited from New Labour, and is due to be introduced next year. It is based on the same principles as the system advocated by Frank Field, another devout Christian who worked briefly at the Department of Social Security (as it then was) in 1997/98 before being politically eliminated by Gordon Brown.
It is fair to say that Mr Osborne now wants to do to Mr Duncan Smith what Gordon Brown did to Frank Field 14 years ago, and for the same reason. The Treasury has always hated the idea of the universal credit, mainly because it is expensive. It is no coincidence that Sir Jeremy Heywood, the Cabinet Secretary, a former Treasury official who served for many years under Mr Brown, is one of George Osborne’s closest allies in this increasingly vicious Whitehall war.
The Chancellor bided his time – then struck once more in the Autumn Statement at the start of this month. Mr Osborne moved on two fronts. The first was financial, with the 1 per cent benefits freeze. I understand that Mr Duncan Smith has reluctantly accepted that these cuts are unavoidable at a time of economic austerity. What dismayed the Work and Pensions Secretary, by contrast, was the unfortunate language used by the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Mr Duncan Smith has been very careful indeed when talking about the workless and unemployed. He has always used the language of redemption, of lifting people off the scrap-heap and giving them a chance to reach their full potential. This is a vocabulary which he developed during the long years when, after being deposed as Tory leader, he toured housing estates, founded the Centre for Social Justice, brooded on the social problems that confront us as a nation and overcame (I guess) some kind of personal crisis of his own.
During this time I used to talk regularly to Mr Duncan Smith, and I noticed that he never once blamed the out-of-work or poverty-stricken for their plight. On the contrary, he went to extreme lengths to identify the causes of their problems, so he could help them find a way out of it. It is unthinkable that he would ever have sought to draw a moral distinction between the working poor and the unemployed – those who stay at home, in the vindictive phrase used by Mr Osborne, “with their curtains closed, sleeping off a life on benefits”.
This distinction between shirkers and workers is now becoming part of Conservative Party strategy. Last weekend, the newly appointed Tory chairman, Grant Shapps, launched a poster campaign with the slogan: “Time to end Labour’s something for nothing culture”, involving photos of idle young thugs, contrasting them with beatific portraits of white, hard-working families.
I am told that when Mr Duncan Smith learnt of this campaign he was, in the words of an ally, “absolutely livid”. After a series of internal rows, the posters are now likely to be ditched. This is, however, very dangerous territory for the Coalition, and it is clear that Iain Duncan Smith is fighting the battle of his life.
I believe it is very important that he survives. There are, at the heart of this Government, only three majestic ideas. The first is the restoration of the public finances, a task to which the ugh Chancellor, strikingly, does not devote his full-time attention. The second is the grand programme of educational reform, masterminded with such admirable courage and verve by Michael Gove.
The third is welfare reform. At the moment Tory high command, egged on by the Chancellor, is trying to take this programme out of the hands of Mr Duncan Smith and use it as a cynical tool to win votes by targeting the vulnerable unemployed. It is time that David Cameron intervened decisively in this rancid Conservative row.
The Prime Minister surely realises that the Tories will never win the argument on welfare if they advocate the cynical language of George Osborne and Grant Shapps. But they would deserve to do so if they stick to Mr Duncan Smith’s far nobler assessment of human motivation. Mr Cameron must remember this: if he lets Iain Duncan Smith’s vision of welfare reform die, the finest part of the Conservative Party will die with it.
Wednesday, 19 December 2012
Thursday, 13 December 2012
Coalition and fuel duty Dec 2012
- Fuel duty escalator - above inflation increases to fuel duty - cancelled in 2000 following protests. From then on no automatic increases were added to petrol - they were handled on a budget-by-budget basis.
- Governments have still increased duty on petrol. Yet, this is not as much nor as 'automatic' as it used to be under the escalator system.
- Cons manifesto 2010 promised a 'fair fuel stabiliser'. It was introducedin the March 2012 Budget. What did this mean? Well, it did not mean an end to fuel duty increases. The government can and will increase fuel duty at some point (as of Dec 2012 it stands at around 57p per litre). The 'stabiliser' simply means that when oil prices are high, fuel duty will increase by RPI inflation only. However, if the oil price falls below a set trigger price on a sustainable basis, fuel duty will be increased by RPI plus one pence per litre in each such year. So really it is designed to function when fuel prices are high.
- Oil prices are currently high. HOWEVER, the Chancellor has either postponed or cancelled several fuel duty rises since 2010. Thus the fuel duty stabiliser has not yet been employed. As and when the government do raise the fuel duty THEN the fuel duty stabiliser will be referred to.
- So it is designed to limit fuel duty when oil prices are high and then let fuel duty increase when price of oil is low. Environmentalists argue that this will not disincentivise road use which is what they argue fuel duty should be used for.
Conservative consultation document 2008.
Freight Transport Association document that was published before the autumn statement 2012 (when Osbourne) cancelled the planned 3p rise in fuel duty. Includes good explanation of the fuel duty stabiliser.
Guardian article on the cancellation of aforementioned rise in fuel duty November 2012.
Excellent summary here.
The fuel duty stabilizer
Written by Dr Eamonn Butler | Thursday 3 March 2011
I'm against any tax of any size on any thing for any reason, but I do not think that messing about with taxes like this is a good idea, nor do I think that it will work. Fuel duty – the government tax levied on hydrocarbon oil – is now around 59p per litre. And then there is the new, higher rate of 20% VAT on both the price of the petrol and the duty. So the total tax is far more than the cost of the fuel itself. Indeed, petrol is taxed at a rate equivalent to 175%. (That's a far higher rate than could be justified under any environmental criterion, by the way: if we had simply a 'carbon tax' on fuel, it would be very, very much cheaper!) So, say campaigners, the present tax on fuel amounts to quite a chunk of cash that, arguably, the government could shave off in order to counteract the effect of rising oil prices and stabilise the price at the pump.
There is a flaw in this argument, though. Nobody really knows where the price of oil is going. There is no 'natural' or 'just price' one can use as a reference point for the decision on whether taxes should be cut, or then restored. The price of fuel is volatile in the short term, and over the long term it sometimes trends down and sometimes trends up. If it carries on like it has been, the government would lose billions by trying to stabilise the price by cutting taxes. And should it do so anyway? Part of the idea of rising prices is that they reveal increasing scarcity – and encourage people to look for alternatives or to economise on the use of the commodity in question. That is why, when you allow governments to try to manipulate prices, you always get trouble.
Sunday, 9 December 2012
2012: Giving power to the people can solve the wind farm stand-off | Damian Carrington | Environment | guardian.co.uk
'via Blog this'
Nov 2012: Energy Bill video
Summary:
Renewable energies to be relied upon (wind and nuclear) - to be paid for by consumersthrough bills. Good for energy industry.
Nov 2012: Energy Bill and Labour opposition
Sunday, 2 December 2012
Nov 2012 Coalition energy bill published: Q&A
Video and report
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-20539981
Coalition green policy
Friday, 30 November 2012
Link to discussion on welfare issues
Tape the three hour special on welfare? Can't face listening to the whole thing?
No matter as the BBC have carved up the highlights. One of them is at the link above.
Wide ranging crit of Coalition welfare reforms
If Beveridge delivered his report now, would we listen? | Polly Toynbee http://gu.com/p/3c7fj
Tuesday, 27 November 2012
Monday, 26 November 2012
Fuel duties - a history New Labour and Coalition
'via Blog this'
Saturday, 24 November 2012
Have the Lib Dems won a green energy victory?
Lib Dems claim a victory over Tories in green energy battle http://gu.com/p/3c4v4
Thursday, 22 November 2012
Green energy - consumers to pay?
Energy bills to rise to pay for green power http://gu.com/p/3c37e
Sunday, 18 November 2012
Saturday, 17 November 2012
Splits in the coalition over the benefits cap
Benefit cap is immoral and divisive, says top Liberal Democrat http://gu.com/p/3bqmq
Tuesday, 13 November 2012
Conservative activists back their own rival over wind power!
Saturday, 10 November 2012
The Independent on Coalition environmental policy 2011
Sunday, 4 November 2012
Wednesday, 31 October 2012
Coalition dispute over windfarms
Tuesday, 30 October 2012
Monday, 29 October 2012
Child benefit cut illegal?
Child benefit cuts 'may be illegal' http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/conservative/9641766/Child-benefit-cuts-may-be-illegal.html
Friday, 26 October 2012
FROM UNIVERSAL TO CONDITIONAL? Iain Duncan Smith targets families of more than two children for benefit cuts
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/oct/25/iain-duncan-smith-benefit-cuts
Iain Duncan Smith suggests two-child limit for benefits
Unemployed parents could lose the right to claim extra benefits if they have more than two children, Iain Duncan Smith has suggested.
Thursday, 25 October 2012
IDS and Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) on on welfare reform
http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9763000/9763456.stm
The Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan-Smith says it is "madness" that taxpayers are supporting families with large numbers of children to live on benefits.
Tuesday, 23 October 2012
Sunday, 21 October 2012
Saturday, 13 October 2012
NHS boss' criticisms of coalition reforms
Don't 'carpet bomb' NHS with competition, says health chief http://gu.com/p/3b53f
Friday, 12 October 2012
A selection of videos on IDS and benefits reform under the Coalition
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zNZ4PaMNT4&feature=related
Thursday, 11 October 2012
Wednesday, 10 October 2012
Viewpoints: Is it right to cut benefits to lessen the deficit?
Wednesday, 26 September 2012
Should wealthy pensioners get their benefits stopped or is a more thorough reform of the benefits system needed?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9755000/9755010.stm
Tuesday, 25 September 2012
Young Vs. Millar over coalition education policy
Fiona Millar is an an educational journalist and campaigner who is married to Blair's famous
spin doctor Alister Campbell. She is an ardent critic of Gove, Free Schools New Academies etc.
Here is a vitriolic Young attack on Millar from a couple of years ago:
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/tobyyoung/100063414/five-questions-for-fiona-millar/
Here are links to Millar's Guardian articles
http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/fionamillar
Both of these characters are excellent suggestions for synoptic knowledge for education policy in this unit.
Friday, 21 September 2012
Wednesday, 19 September 2012
Ofsted: pupil premium 'failing to raise standards'
Clegg apologies
Education policies videos. Very useful!
Monday, 17 September 2012
How green is the "greenest government in history"?
Sunday, 16 September 2012
Academies' success and the problems of evidence?
Friday, 14 September 2012
Third runway
Thursday, 6 September 2012
Reshuffle analysis from The Economist
Tuesday, 4 September 2012
Nick Robinson on reshuffle
Problem one: The NHS. Not just selling reforms already passed but - arguably much harder - achieving the efficiencies needed to execute the biggest squeeze on the NHS's finances ever seen. Jeremy Hunt is rewarded for his competence overseeing the Olympics, rather than punished for his alleged failings in handling the Murdochs.
Monday, 3 September 2012
Too many targets spoil the effect
Critique of New Labour's "obsession" with targets from 2002.
New Labour and Thatcher's legacy in education policy
http://www.tes.co.uk/article.aspx?storycode=6011956
Summary of some of Gove's education reforms by a Politics teacher
Back in 2010, Michael Gove promised a series of major reforms to the education system; which he felt had been overly bureaucratised by Labour. An overhaul of the national Curriculum was first on the agenda, involving a large slimming down of its framework. By focusing on Science, Maths and English in particular Gove’s aim is to give schools more freedom in subjects they teach. Gove also has advocated more teacher power in disciplining students and called for reforms in teacher training. In order to remove the bureaucracy started by Labour, Gove plans to tighten up league tables in an attempt to prevent teachers’ inflating rankings – Schools rewarded based on achievement in 5 core subjects, instead of all subjects.Read the rest here:
http://alevelpolitics.com/micheal-goves-education-reforms/#more-154
Friday, 27 July 2012
Academies given powers to hire unqualified teachers
Michael Gove tells academies they can hire unqualified teaching staff http://gu.com/p/39bj8
Monday, 9 July 2012
Saturday, 7 July 2012
Wednesday, 4 July 2012
Tuesday, 3 July 2012
Guardian columnist defends Cameron!
Sunday, 1 July 2012
Friday, 29 June 2012
Concise VIDEOS on the Lansley NHS reforms
Thursday, 28 June 2012
It’s not heartless to replace welfare with work - Telegraph.
"The fundamentals upon which today’s benefits system was built were straightforward enough. They represented a moral response to the privations and penury of the urban poor in the years after the industrial revolution. The aim was to help people to help themselves and to provide a safety net for those who couldn’t, or who found themselves in temporary difficulties either through illness or unemployment. An essential principle for Chadwick and Lloyd George – and for William Beveridge, too – was that benefits should not be set so high as to deter a low-paid worker from taking a job [see Medicine Through Time GCSE History textbook! - RWG]. They all recognised the dangers of creating what we now call a dependency culture, whereby state payments are so generous that the rational choice for recipients is to live on them rather than take what might be an arduous and poorly rewarded job."....and Tom Chapman was there to witness the speech!!!! Chappers perhaps you could comment below on the speech and the atmosphere in the crowd. Is there any 'Thick of It' style political gossip to tell?
Does this represent the end of Cameron's 'compassionate Conservatism' or is it a reassertion of it? Do these ideas fit in with the coalition's current 'universal credit' which will be slowly introduced over the next couple of years?
Predictably Toynbee (a leftist's leftist - and therefore a gift for synopticity marks in the exam) counters (full article) here...
Behind in the polls, David Cameron cleaves to his one truly popular policy:cutting welfare. Pollsters say people want it cut even more. His speech hits every button, stirring up those on quite low incomes against those on very low incomes, dividing and ruling, distracting from the lifestyle of the rulers. With the rottweiler tendency on his backbenches growing restless, he throws them the vulnerable to chew on – all those luxuriating in the "culture of entitlement" on £71 a week unemployment pay. Politically, it works well – for now.
A red mist of despair poured from children's and disability charities, stunned at yet another assault on those they try to defend. Already the £18bn benefit cut is "without historical or international precedent," according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies. Cameron's 17 "ideas" may not all see the light of day, but another £10bn will be cut: housing benefit and US-style benefit time limits yield the big money.
....and a full scale attack via Guardian editorial here (if it's in an editorial, then the paper really mean it!
'via Blog this'
Wednesday, 27 June 2012
Sunday, 24 June 2012
Proposed return to O-Levels/CSEs/Gove/Selection Controversy Summer 2012
Useful links here:
Guardian
- Original story
- Have GCSEs got easier?
- Clegg said neither he nor PM consulted by Gove
- No. 10 says that the PM was consulted by Gove, Clegg made to look silly
- Criticism of the proposal
- Underlying personal and political reasons for Gove's proposals
- Clegg says he'll block the plan
- Excellent set of differing opinions in public letters. Guardian yes, but not always predictable in terms of opinions voiced (after all, anyone can write in to a newspaper).
- This article here is one of the best as it links in the underlying debate about the last 50 years of education policy regarding the grammar system VS. comprehensive system split. The author argues that Tory hardliners would love a return to the grammar system but that parents would not have it as it might leave their children behind. Gove, the author argues, is tapping into the Tory nostalgia for grammar school education. Remember Kent is a bit of an anomaly in that most of the country's education authorities scrapped the grammar school system and 11+ in the 1970s. Interestingly someone on Andrew Marr show this morning argued that the Tories knew that the LDs would block the o-level plan. The plan is, she argued, to 'dangle' tasty full-blooded Tory policies in front of Tory voters as if to say, "Look what we can give you if you give us a majority at the next election....Look how the LDs are holding us back." Usually it is the LDs who take this kind of line hinting at the idea that the LDs are limiting the damage of a Tory government. This may be an example of the PM asserting the Tory position in coalition.
- Criticism of GCSE is nothing new and goes back many years.
Now for the Telegraph:
- Good blog post here
- The building of new grammar schools have been banned since 1998 but one way the coalition has tried to get around the ban without having to attract too much criticism for it, is by what some critics call the 'back-door' route. The grammar, to be built in Sevenoaks, Kent, will form an 'annexe' (add-on) of two existing schools in Tunbridge Wells and Tonbridge. So it won't be a school in its own right but that won't bother parents who have been campaigning for a new grammar school in the town. Could more be on the way? See here.
- An interesting article defending Gove and his plans.
- Another here questioning the whether Gove can really succeed.
- Useful opinions here in the Telegraph letters
- Interesting Telegraph blog here from right-wing ex-Labour candidate,http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/timstanley/100166721/michael-gove-and-o-levels-if-hes-really-bringing-them-back-he-deserves-to-be-prime-minister/ Oxford Professor of History and Kentish-rake Tim Stanley, arguing that Gove should become prime-minister! I guess Tim no-longer harbours ambitions of being a Labour MP as he did back in 2005.
Thursday, 21 June 2012
New Labour's "City Academies" - good example - the famous Mossbourne Academy, Hackey
Wednesday, 20 June 2012
April 2012: Gove on new powers for teachers to improve discipline
Tuesday, 19 June 2012
Housing Benefit - which department handles it?
http://www.dwp.gov.uk/local-authority-staff/housing-benefit/
Monday, 18 June 2012
The new primary curriculum
The school curriculum: it's the non-core bits that stay with you for life http://gu.com/p/38b7g
Sunday, 17 June 2012
Environment/Transport: Why was HS2 not in the recent Queen's speech? Is HS2 dead? 3rd Runway back?
Spectator article here. Another here. Podcast here.
If HS2 is dead, is a third runway at Heathrow back in play? – Telegraph Blogs
Friday, 15 June 2012
Telegraph VS Guardian over IDS speech on Welfare
Wednesday, 13 June 2012
Critique of Coalition's attacks on 'troubled families'
Critique of Coalition policies that allegedly vilify the vulnerable
Tuesday, 12 June 2012
Tuesday, 5 June 2012
Energy policy round up May-June 2012
Guardian:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/jun/04/renerwable-energy-boosts-farmer-profits
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/jun/04/government-mixed-signals-carbon-emissions
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/damian-carrington-blog/2012/jun/04/wind-farm-power-opposition
Independent:
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/green-living/michael-mccarthy-ghastly-lethal-to-birds--but-a-necessary-evil-7814797.html
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/green-living/build-more-turbines-poll-shows-public-wants-wind-farms-7814798.html
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/green-living/hockney-country-enraged-by-superturbines-plan-7814796.html
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/green-living/government-backtracks-on-fracking-7768853.html
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/leading-articles/leading-article-no-easy-answers-to-green-energy-7768693.html
Monday, 4 June 2012
Full letter from MPs to David Cameron on wind power subsidies - Telegraph
In these financially straightened times, we think it is unwise to make consumers pay, through taxpayer subsidy, for inefficient and intermittent energy production that typifies on-shore wind turbines."
'via Blog this'
Video: How noisy is a wind farm? - Telegraph
Not particularly scientific this, but think the Telegraph appear to be saying that wind farms aren't really that noisy until you get up really close, and certainly no worse than living by a main road.
'via Blog this'
Sunday, 3 June 2012
George Osborne demands massive cuts to windfarm subsidies | Politics | The Observer
The Observer has learned that George Osborne is demanding cuts of 25% in subsidies, a reduction the industry says would "kill dead" the development of wind power sites. The Treasury's stance has put the chancellor at loggerheads with the Liberal Democrat energy secretary Ed Davey, whose party strongly supports more renewable energy."
'via Blog this'
Monday, 28 May 2012
Coalition energy policy
Tuesday, 22 May 2012
The new Draft Energy Bill: A gift for A2 Politics Environment
Telegraph
Guardian
Guardian Q&As on Energy policy/issues.
All sorts going on in Energy policy. A new draft energy bill is on the way which will mean 5 key developments:
- A stimulus to the nuclear power industry. Good news for them.
- A 'dash for gas'
- Bad news for renewable energy companies
- Bad news for environmentalists who want massive investment in renewables and bill payers
- Allegedly bad news for Cameron and the Coalition's so-called "greenest-government-ever" image
1. A stimulus to the nuclear power industry. Good news for them.
The government wants to extend the life of old nuclear power stations instead of decommissioning (which was the previous plan). Anti-nuclear campaigners are angry and LDs will clearly be unhappy that their long term anti-nuclear policy has been ignored.
2. A 'dash for gas'
The Chancellor hailed the 'dash for gas' in the 2012 budget, "Gas is cheap, has much less carbon than coal and will be the largest single source of our electricity in the coming years. And so the energy secretary will set out our new gas generation strategy in the autumn to secure investment. I also want to that ensure we extract the greatest possible amount of oil and gas from our reserves in the North Sea." Though the recent North Sea gas leak has raised concerns that it is not without environmental costs, and ultimatley gas is a finite resource. The opening up of 'fracking' has also caused concerns over tremors and worries over gas getting into the water supply (so say campaign group FRACK OFF - synopticity).
3. Bad news for renewable energy companies
Renewable companies are concerned that they will lose out, because the current system of subsidies will be replaced with a complex new system of support that could favour big companies over their smaller rivals. This new system – known as contracts for difference – would allow companies to sign long-term contracts to supply electricity. But the prices on such contracts could be higher or lower than the price of electricity in the wholesale market – the attraction to companies is supposed to be that the long-term nature of the contracts gives them the stability and certainty they need to invest. However, several renewables companies told the Guardian they thought the contracts would push smaller suppliers out of the market. Dale Vince, founder of Ecotricity, called for an exemption for small suppliers in order to encourage competition in the market. Many critics also see the move away from renewables as a missed opportunity to invest in the economy, create jobs and help get the economy growing again.
4. Bad news for environmentalists who want massive investment in renewables and bill payers
The bill is fatal to the hopes of building a low-carbon economy in the UK, according to green campaigners, and could leave consumers hooked on an increasingly expensive fossil fuel, with the soaring price rises that could entail. The UK's own supplies of natural gas in the North Sea are being rapidly depleted, making consumers heavily dependent on imports and the price volatility that brings. As any new gas-fired power stations would be expected to carry on operating – and producing CO2 – for at least 25 years, this would also make the UK's climate change targets in the 2020s increasingly hard to meet.
5. The greenest government ever?
- Osborne has made ungreen speeches
- Subsidies for solar cut
- Tory MPs rebelled over wind turbines
- Coalition split over nuclear between Tories (pro) and LDs (anti)
Excellent Ch4 Video below and article here