Dad. Husband. Business Owner. Pro European. Centre Right. Commited Realist. Unbiased talk about the state of UK Water š and Energy ā”plus politics.
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š°The Cost of Renewables 2025 Megathreadš°
The Government is pushing the narrative that renewables are cheap and gas is the problem. It's been 18 months since my last thread showed this to be a lie.
Have things changed? Or is Ed Miliband driving us towards ruin? š§µ
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Steve Loftus retweeted
Rayner is not a particularly bright politician. Sheās dined out on her good looks, working-class authenticity and links with the unions. But make no mistake, she is not a capable politician.
Political parties change the goalposts all the time. Just look at the tax system or student loans.
Exclusive:
Angela Rayner has said that Shabana Mahmoodās plan to make it harder for foreign workers to claim permanent residence in the UK is unfair because it will āchange the goalpostsā
In an interview with The Times before Labourās party conference, the housing, communities and local government secretary said that the plan would hit foreign care workers who had āmoved their lives here to look after our loved onesā
Rayner said she stood by the criticism she made of the plan before she rejoined the government under Andy Burnham, when she described it as āun-Britishā. Burnham also has concerns and is considering exempting foreign care workers who are already in Britain from the crackdown
Asked if she stood by her views, she said: āEspecially in regards to the carers, who were asked to come to this country to care for some of our most vulnerable and then we changed the goalposts years down the line, I think thatās very disruptive
āI do have concerns about that ā¦ when you ask someone to come here and look after your most vulnerable and they spend years dedicating themselves, moving their lives here to look after our loved ones.ā
Asked whether she had raised the issue with Mahmood directly, Rayner said: āI think Shabana knows. It was in the newspaper at the time. Iāve not changed my view on that. I just think when people relocate because we have skills shortages in this country, I think we have to be aware of that.ā
thetimes.com/article/385bb01ā¦
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Steve Loftus retweeted
Britain's first reservoir for 30 years has been delayed another five years.
Now, Heathrow 3rd runway delayed until 2039
Why? The regulatory purgatory that imprisons UK growth - and will imprison Burnham unless he reforms.
My Times column:-
times-comment.com/hs2
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This is a low IQ argument.
5% on 100% debt to GDP ratio is obviously far worse than 5% on 40% debt to GDP.
The rate on its own is meaningless.
Lots of scary talk in bonds these days, but it's mostly recency bias. Since 1960 the 10 year yield has averaged 5.8%. We're at 5% - below average. If you'd fallen asleep 20 years ago and woke up today you'd think nothing happened in the bond market the entire time.
Ignore all the sovereign debt crisis talk. Inflation expectations are adjusting to something more historically normalized. Carry on.
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Steve Loftus retweeted
Three ideas to END Britain's GROWTH EMERGENCY.
1ā£ JUST BUILD STUFF
Parliament CAN pass legislation in ONE DAY.
Like the Victorians once did, the Government must PASS specialised acts that BUILDS major infrastructure IMMEDIATELY.
No reviews. No consultations. No excuses.
2ā£ GET BILLS DOWN
š SCRAP levies on energy bills.
š Deploy tax revenue from the North Sea to get bills DOWN.
š Stop paying Big Renewable Corporations BILLIONS to turn their turbines OFF.
š SCRAP Clean Power 2030 targets.
š Implement ALL 47 recommendations from the Fingleton Review.
3ā£ SCRAP STAMP DUTY ON SHARES
20 years ago, companies raised Ā£51 BILLION on the London Stock Exchange.
In 2025, they managed LESS THAN 0.5%.
In the global IPO league table, we have dropped BELOW Mexico, Spain & Turkey.
Every time a person buys a share, they pay a tax. This is a BARRIER to investment.
The Government must END THIS TAX.
No excuses. No distractions. The Government must take RADICAL ACTION to RESCUE BRITAIN.
@lawrencenewport on @BBCNewsnight š
"I really do not favour another election... what the country needs is results."
Lawrence Newport, founder of Looking for Growth, tells #Newsnight that the UK requires "profound change" and "strong leadership" as PM Andy Burnham plays down the idea of an early election.
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Steve Loftus retweeted
Labour loves gaslighting* us. š
There is no money when itās for the UK.
Gaza, Sudan, Angola, UN Climate nonsense howeverā¦. For them taxpayer money grows on trees, or at least our childrenās debt.
*otherwise known as lying
> Reading the breathless Labour press release on new money for regeneration
> read to the bottom
> it admits there's no new money for regeneration
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Steve Loftus retweeted
Some of the criticism to this tweet is unfair given the Minister wasnāt even an MP when much of the acceleration in UK Unit Labour Costs occurred.
But this Parliament has ramped up the costs of employing someone (NICS, NLW, ERA), rather than looking at the trends before they took office and concluding quite the opposite was required.
Like many people across Swansea Bay, Iām deeply disappointed to learn that Admiral Insurance are to cut 500 jobs from its UK business. Iāve asked for an urgent meeting with the company to talk about what happens next - particularly in Swansea.
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Steve Loftus retweeted
And the price of British energy is where globally?
Wind and solar now supply 40% of Britain's electricity demand.
What a remarkable change has been made over the last decade! Ā That puts us ahead of most major world economies.
A bit of positive news for your weekend read at Electric Insights: reports.electricinsights.co.ā¦
ALT The share of Britainās electricity demand met by wind and solar power reached 40% in the second quarter of 2026, ahead of most major world economies. International comparisons cover 2025, or the most recently available data.
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Steve Loftus retweeted
That wasnāt his baby.
I suspect heād taken him/her off a woman in the water to try to use the baby to get on the boat.
Thatās been documented as happening previously.
The bloke who left a baby for dead in the water will be in Britain now. The boat left on Monday from Berck Beach. He must be prosecuted.
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Steve Loftus retweeted
Introducing the new M&SAS Tactical Range:
M&S x SAS - designed by Monica Grenfell
Made with AI
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It's important to be clear this is largely nothing to do with anything the UK has done.
Irregular arrivals into Europe are down nearly 40% and thus those coming to the UK are down a similar amount.
Small-boat crossings have just lunged to a four-year low. No minister has mentioned it.
But without legal reform, small arrival dramas will keep eclipsing bigger success.
My column:-
times-comment.com/bc
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Steve Loftus retweeted
š©šŖ SAD INDUSTRIAL STORY
Germany built a huge solar power plant with moving solar panels, which turn with the sun and fold together in case of danger.
The Solarpark Erlasee was the benchmark for the green energy transition! The plant was the largest open-air photovoltaic plant in the world in 2008.
Now, years later ALL companies that produced the solar panel moving panels are bankrupt, so they cannot be maintained! The panels get struck in wrong position and repairs are extremely expensive, because spare parts are made by custom hand.
In addition the energy subsidies ran out, and the electricity production is just not profitable anymore! Now the solar field is bankrupt.
-> Man, everyone involved in this project became bankrupt! Everyone!
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Steve Loftus retweeted
Jess is fighting valiantly to keep her job and salary despite being 100% wrong about everything all the time.
"It's not a race to save polar bears anymore. It's all about industrial strategy."
Why are renewables hitting all time records in the UK & globally?
Gas and oil price spikes based on whims of foreign regimes highlights case for renewables as a national security measure
693GW installed in 2025 alone
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This is the first AI song I've heard that I've thought could be commercially viable and it's been earworming me for a couple of days.
Ironically, it's about AI taking over.
NotinReality
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Steve Loftus retweeted
Iām pretty convinced that, even with the huge surplus of wind energy that we have in Scotland, the Ā£70bn in transmission line buildout thatās planned between now and 2031 is still a bad use of money. Locational pricing would be a lot better (and is free).
2. In what areas should the government increase (or decrease) spending to achieve growth?
Respondents generally favoured spending more on utilities, particularly nuclear energy, water infrastructure and the grid.
They generally favoured reducing welfare & social security spending, including the state pension.
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Steve Loftus retweeted
Narrator: Renewables have driven the highest industrial electricity prices in the developed world.
Wind and solar now supply 40% of Britain's electricity demand.
What a remarkable change has been made over the last decade! Ā That puts us ahead of most major world economies.
A bit of positive news for your weekend read at Electric Insights: reports.electricinsights.co.ā¦
ALT The share of Britainās electricity demand met by wind and solar power reached 40% in the second quarter of 2026, ahead of most major world economies. International comparisons cover 2025, or the most recently available data.
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Steve Loftus retweeted
The moment Reform welcomed former Conservative ministers who had helped advance Net Zero between 2019-2024 into their party, it lost the right to blame the refinery crisis entirely on "Tory obsessions".
You cannot jump ship and assume your past sins have been washed away simply because you changed rosette.
Here is Reformās Shadow Chancellor in April 2019, as a Treasury minister, telling Farhana Yamin, a prominent climate lawyer and one of the key architects of the global Net Zero agenda, and other Extinction Rebellion representatives that he understood the "imperative to act", that Britain "could do so much more", and that the Treasury wanted to "help" take the agenda forward "at pace".
The "big emitters" Jenrick is referring to very much include refineries - which were caught in the exact same carbon-pricing regime as steel. These are the industries we have spent years making less competitive.
I am not making an anti-Jenrick point here. He is entitled to change his mind - just as the Conservative Party has done - and that is a good thing. What I care about is consistency and telling the truth about how we got here.
Because Labour & Tories are obsessed with Net Stupid Zero so they allowed refineries to close, storage to close and assume the sun would always shine
Morons
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Steve Loftus retweeted
There are 27. Since 2020 the EU-27 have grown by 13%, the UK by 17%. Not such a smart ass now, are you? And it makes more sense to compare the UK with the other three big, comparable EU economies.
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Steve Loftus retweeted
Torsten, when you find the fool who:
š± Voted for 330 pages of employment red tape
š± Hiked NI costs by Ā£25 billion
š± Jacked up rates on businesses
do be sure to tell them precisely what you think.
Like many people across Swansea Bay, Iām deeply disappointed to learn that Admiral Insurance are to cut 500 jobs from its UK business. Iāve asked for an urgent meeting with the company to talk about what happens next - particularly in Swansea.
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