🅳🆂🆃

As a reluctant remainer myself I find this more or less exactly reflects my current thinking. On our own we may not make the right decisions but becoming a pensioner of Brussels is a guarantee of failure.

I'm team Samuel. I was a remainer who'd now vote to stay out. The economic damage while not nothing has been less than predicted, we're now a full democracy, and badly need a new course that would be harder in. This doesn't rule out closer military ties thetimes.com/comment/column…

A drone ‘recreation’ of the RMS Titanic, staged in Belfast harbour through the use a ‘flotilla’ of almost 1,000 drones, marks the arrival of BBC’s Made Of Here campaign in Northern Ireland. 👇 bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/20…

Couldn't agree more with @CitySamuel today - I too was a reluctant Remainer, but everything that has happened since confirms we made the right decision to Leave. Exiting the EU is a prerequisite for any national revival thetimes.com/comment/column…

Yes it will. Here’s how: STEP 1: Drill oil & gas in the North Sea🛢️ STEP 2: Oil companies pay tax as usual (~£2.5bn/yr) STEP 3: Use that revenue to cut household bills RESULT: Lower energy bills ⚡️ Miliband pretending not to know this is deliberate stupidity to avoid a u-turn.

Well hello, Laffer Curve

The problem with casting a closer relationship with Europe as the solution to the world's current economic malaise is that it kind of misses the point. The key problem at present is a shortage of ENERGY. Europe has an energy deficit. Up until 2022 it filled that gap with gas from Russia. Now it fills that gap with gas (and oil) from the US and Middle East. It swapped one dependency for another. We can debate whether that dependency is inevitable, the extent to which it's a function of geology and/or political decisions taken years ago. Regardless, right now Europe is highly exposed to the problems in the Gulf. And without US energy imports it is in BIG trouble. A closer relationship between the UK and the EU does not solve this conundrum.

@lfg_uk 😂 ah, just for a moment there …

We are delighted to announce Nick Clegg as the new head of our Energy Policy Department. Nick has shown foresight and expertise in the energy sector for decades, with an unparalleled track record on energy security and nuclear power in particular. We look forward to working with Nick to secure Britain’s energy supply now, and in the years to come.

Britain now has the highest industrial electricity prices in the developed world. At 25p per kilowatt-hour, its power costs stand at double the EU average and quadruple those of the US (6p) and China (7p). But this isn’t just about the death of old industry. Just as cheap electricity determined the industrial powers of the past, it will now determine the AI superpowers of the future. The real competition is not about who builds the best AI models, but who can afford to run them. Sovereignty in this century is found in the physical ability to process Intelligence at an industrial scale. Britain’s current path is a dead end. There are 140 data centers in the UK’s grid connection queue, representing 50 GW of demand — more than the entire country’s current peak usage (45 GW). For many, the quoted connection date is 2040. As Intelligence proliferates, productivity will no longer be measured in man-hours, but in Tokens-per-Watt: how many units of ‘Intelligence’ a kilowatt-hour of electricity can buy. With its 25p rate, it is already 400% more expensive to buy Intelligence in Britain than in China or the US. This is a direct hit to the UK services sector, which accounts for 82% of the economy. As AI automates knowledge work, British firms must 'rent' intelligence from foreign clouds at predatory rates just to stay competitive. Even if Britain builds domestic AI infrastructure, the 25p barrier means it would be structurally uncompetitive from day one. This leaves only the path of outsourcing national productivity to foreign clouds, a permanent transfer of British wealth. True sovereignty requires a radical shift to dedicated, low-cost power for compute. Without cheap energy, Britain won’t just lose its factories — it may lose its offices, too.

ONS has just updated trade figures & we now have the EU/non-EU breakdown for 2025. In 2025, UK total (goods & services) exports to the EU were: · 18.9%⬆️on 2015 (pre-referendum). · 3.8%⬆️on 2019 (before leaving EU). · 3.2%⬆️on 2024. (all in real terms) …

This is another way of saying that the UK hasn't taken fossil fuel energy security seriously for about four decades so please don't ask us to bear the consequences. ft.com/content/52541a…

French TV tonight - "C'est une honte nationale": dépassée par la France, suppléée par l'Allemagne, qualifiée de "jouet" par Trump... Le déclin de la marine britannique embarrasse les Anglais

Good to see our salt story followed up here👇 The slow motion collapse (actually no longer slow motion) of Britain's chemicals industry is a BIG deal. But NB it's not just salt. Ammonia, sulphuric acid, ethanol, and a host of other foundational chemicals too. All going or gone

The current state of the Royal Navy: 2 aircraft carriers — neither operational. 6 Type 45 destroyers (our most powerful warships) — one operational (in Cyprus). 7 Type 23 frigates (less powerful, much older) — three operational 5 Astute class nuke-powered subs — one operational (in Arabian Sea?). Surely those responsible for this appalling state of unreadiness (a national embarrassment if ever there was one)— political, civilian and military — should be fired/charged. Their incompetence has effectively left us without a navy. Quite an achievement for an ancient island nation.

The head of M&S has accused the government of driving up the cost of energy bills for businesses amid mounting concern about the impact of Iran war Stuart Machin said government levies now account for half of his company's energy costs 'Over the last few years the 'policy costs' on our energy bill have skyrocketed 'These are the tariffs that government place on our bills to fund their policies, and have nothing to do with the price of oil or gas. They now make up over half our bill. It's just not sustainable for UK businesses'

Affordable housing requirements: yet another great example of how constant government tinkering with the economy is like that Father Ted episode where he tries to hammer a small dent out of a car bonnet, & ends up trashing the whole car as he tries to hammer out all the dents.

I think everyone excited about New Towns should visit Northstowe, a new New Town outside Cambridge (about 40 mins away), and the largest New Town in England since Milton Keynes. It's been a disaster so far. It's been built very poorly/cheaply made and planned. The housing stock is ugly and cheap. It doesn't have a shop, a GP, or a gym, and it's been kind of a ghost town the times I've been. A lot of the residents are furious and feel totally misled into buying there. And yet *it's probably the most prime place in England to build a New Town*! So what's the problem? Partially it's lots of costs being put on to the new housing, including a 40% affordable requirement, which means developers build cheaply and cut corners to be able to have something to sell at a price people can afford (in the same way high land costs mean new builds are worse quality). Partially it's because Homes England, the Quango delivering it (and likely any future New Towns), is useless. Labour's supposed wave of New Towns (I actually doubt any will happen of any significant size) will suffer from all of these problems. And most won't even have the benefit of being a short commute away from Cambridge!

There is no ‘global price for gas’. How can you be an energy expert and not know that?

Starmer now claiming the blockage on new gas fields in the North Sea is "legal process". This is what the Labour Manifesto said:

This applies to the North Sea too. Even if North Sea drilling has no impact on gas prices, domestic production still helps because of the impact on exports/sterling. More gas exports mean a stronger pound and a stronger pound means that all the stuff we import gets cheaper.