howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
Guest 640- Registered: 21 Apr 2007
- Posts: 7,819
It was very fashionable to be super-green several years ago..everybody was jumping on a rolling bandwagon. There were calls...by the Green Party among others... and hopelessly they are still calling for it, to put the cost of petrol up and up to keep cars and vehicles in general off the road. Can you image the fall-out costs to families everywhere, food bills soaring due to stratospheric logistical costs. It was just crazy easy populism without anyone at all highlighting the fallout from such policies.. The Green London Mayoral candidate was still calling for this recently.
Green energy was the thing too..windfarms and so on. But these were all populist moves to win elections. Windfarms, cosy and cute that they might be in green terms, were never going to produce enough energy to satisfy demand. A few percentages of our needs only, I think some wag on TV mentioned at the most 5% of our energy needs.
We have to...like it or not...rely on Nuclear Power or the lights will go out in the future. Its all very well wanting a nice pleasant land for our children to inherit but they wont thank you in years to come if they only have lights 3 days a week.
Sadly according to Howards link above the costs of energy is going to increase anyway because of a series of cock-ups with the Coalition Government. Cock ups which were intended to make the world a green and cosy place. Now with rising prices, and thanks to Mr Cameron the winter fuel bills for pensioners coming down ..well its a right to-do so it is. Surely winter fuel bills should be going up to meet the extra charges.
Guest 656- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 2,262
How on earth are low income working families and a very large chunk of our pensioners going to manage with yet more increases in our energy bills along with everything else that is soaring upwards

I just do not understand why the winter fuel payment for pensioners is going down ......... why?
This Coalition Government needs a Reality Check-Up from the Neck-Up

Guest 725- Registered: 7 Oct 2011
- Posts: 1,418
Well I have been drawing people's attention to this for some time now. Of course now it's "officially" a problem having appeared in the Telegraph. Rather like in the sixties when some housewives refused to buy some brands of washing powder unless it was advertised on the telly the same goes with this extremely important issue - possibly the most important issue we face.
The problem stems from the fact that the government department which is there to deal with energy policy has been renamed the "department of energy and climate change".
Can you spot the problem there? In the title? Substitute climate change for, say, gravity or alien invasion or bouncing yellow tennis balls and you might just get it.
The other factor to take into account surrounding this issue is the fact that our members of parliament are, in general, very, very stupid.
David Cameron is very, very stupid and not fit for office. Having said that he stands as a shining example to the rest of the conservative party who are, in the main, even more stupid than he is.
The same can be said for the other two leaders of the opposition, Clegg and Milliband and not forgetting the leader of the greens Caroline Lucas.
Tim Yeo who heads some sort of government department to do with global warming is also paid handsomely by way of his work with renewable energy companies. It strikes me that letting someone so deeply embedded with companies whose sole aim is to screw the consumer down till his shirt is ripped from his back smacks of fraud or something very close to it.
Finally, this era of stupidity we are living through is aided and abetted by the state broadcaster the BBC. They have championed this madness to the point where it's quite easy to see exactly how Adolph Hitler managed to sweep to power helped by a brilliant manipulation of the media.
Lastly, we are the biggest fools letting them get away with this scandal.
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
i hadn't heard that about the cut in winter fuel allowance, if so then dave would have broken one election pledge twice over before getting halfway through a parliament.
Guest 716- Registered: 9 Jun 2011
- Posts: 4,010
Time for impeachment............
Guest 725- Registered: 7 Oct 2011
- Posts: 1,418
Not to put too fine a point on it:
From Guido Fawkes blog.
http://order-order.com/2012/07/23/why-tim-yeo-is-really-upset-about-green-cuts/
Remember Tim Yeo the next time your bills go up.
Guest 703- Registered: 30 Jul 2010
- Posts: 2,096
Howard, you probably didn't hear about the cuts to Winter Fuel Allowance because there weren't any, it was a temporary enhancement in specific circumstances that wasn't renewed
http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Pensionsandretirementplanning/Benefits/BenefitsInRetirement/DG_179916Guest 640- Registered: 21 Apr 2007
- Posts: 7,819
Ah...thats a nicely spun way of putting it Ray..when something goes down it looks like a cut to the person on the receiving end. For several years I got £250 Winter Fuel Allowance...this suddenly without any explanation became £200 this year. If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck..then its a duck.
here is a section from the latest article in the Public Sector Executive on energy policy, or the lack of...
I put this up to highlight the obvious disarray in the Coalition in this arena. As can also be seen in Philips link. But which side of the argument is responsible for household increases?? Both claim it to be the other side.
"
ENERGY BILL UNWORKABLE - says Tim Yeo
The Treasury has been accused of making the energy bill "unworkable" by the Commons Energy & Climate Change Select Committee and its Conservative chairman Tim Yeo MP.
The legislation would scrap systems of subsidy for large-scale renewable energy and encourage nuclear power through a new system of 'contracts for difference' - where companies would sign long-term agreements to supply and pay for low-carbon generation.
It is well-known that the DECC and energy secretary Ed Davey have been engaged in a long-running fight with the Treasury and chancellor George Osborne over energy policy and subsidies.
The energy committee has said the resulting legislation is over-complicated and that the proposed spending cap to limit green levies that can be passed onto consumers in energy bills could introduce an "unacceptable" level of risk to companies looking to invest.
Yeo has attacked the plans, which he said would create the risk of higher household bills, limit investment and reinforce the dominance of the 'Big 6' energy companies.
He asserted that the Treasury demanded changes to the bill to placate Tory backbenchers who oppose the construction of new windfarms in their constituencies. Major cuts to support for onshore wind would "cause serious damage to the industry," he said, highlighting that wind is the cheapest way to meet renewables targets.
Yeo said: "The Government is in danger of botching its plans to boost clean energy, because the Treasury is refusing to back new contracts to deliver investment in nuclear, wind, wave and carbon capture and storage."
In an interview with the BBC, he specifically blamed Tory backbenchers, saying: "Under the guise of reducing bills for consumers, the chancellor will actually be increasing consumers' bills. I don't know if the back-benchers realise this but surely the Treasury does - yet it keeps pressing on with an action that's clearly political to assuage MPs who don't like turbines in the countryside."
"
Howard I think Mr Cameron has got away with his election pledge in that he hasnt cut Winter Fuel Allowance in the sense that he hasnt axed it. This was what people were worried about, but he said only recently that Winter Fuel Allowance was safe at PMQs. I often shout in his direction on the screen asking why he has cut the actual level...but I dont get an answer.
There are further grumblings afoot as we know, talks about about making it 'means tested'...which strikes me as a bad route to take. Nobody wants to have their right to it analyzed by a whippersnapper from some department or other.
Guest 716- Registered: 9 Jun 2011
- Posts: 4,010
Propaganda can only last for a short time.......they were lucky it lasted 2 years...
...their time is up....
Guest 745- Registered: 27 Mar 2012
- Posts: 3,370
Expensive renewing PowerStation's!
Now you would have thought that new owners of the utilities companies would have saved up for this day out of there profits.
But that would resemble the old 20 year energy policy of yesteryears, couldn't have that could we.
Guest 725- Registered: 7 Oct 2011
- Posts: 1,418
I think this helps to explain part of why we face rolling blackouts in the UK over the next few years:
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100172094/tim-yeo-like-a-cross-between-ebola-and-chris-huhne/
I'm amazed that people are not more worked up about this subject. I expect the olympicircus has helped to distract the proles from marching on the streets, that and last year's jubilee blowout which was merely another distraction and a waste of time and money.
Guest 725- Registered: 7 Oct 2011
- Posts: 1,418