I’ll keep this short, as plenty of people have had their say in the media already about the mismatch between the votes cast (or not cast) in the recent UK general election and the numbers of seats obtained by the various political parties that stood in it.
On 1st July the Guardian reported on Ed Miliband’s claim that:
If we win the election, it will send a message round the world that the approach we are taking on clean energy, our argument on bills, independence, jobs and future generations, you can win an election on that argument…
…We are seeking a mandate in this election for that agenda, it’s a mandate for economic change and it’s a mandate to tackle climate change…
…We will make the modern, progressive, big tent case for climate action which does the right thing now. Rishi Sunak may have departed the pitch but I don’t think the British public have.
And now that the Labour Party has won the general election with a massive majority in the House of Commons our new Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, has claimed:
For the first time in 20 plus years, we have a majority in England, in Scotland and in Wales and that is a clear mandate to govern for all four corners of the United Kingdom.
At the risk of being pedantic, Sir Keir, Northern Ireland is also part of the United Kingdom, and you don’t have a majority there, due to the sectarian nature of its politics that sees the main UK parties (including the Labour Party) generally avoiding anything to do with its politics. So “all four corners” is a bit of an exaggeration.
Leaving that aside, however, there is no doubt at all that the newly elected Labour government has a constitutional mandate to implement its pre-election manifesto. Our first past the post system has delivered a stunning victory for Labour, but in no meaningful sense can it be said that the UK public voted enthusiastically in support of any part of Labour’s manifesto. As the BBC acknowledges:
A purely proportional system – where national vote share translated exactly into the number of seats – in 2024 would have given Labour about 195 seats and no majority. The Tories would have had 156 seats, Reform 91, the Liberal Democrats 78 and the Greens 45.
I acknowledge that such an analysis is subject to the caveat offered up by the BBC in its next paragraph:
However, it’s also important to recognise that voters might well vote differently if the voting system was more proportional.
That’s a fair point, but it’s also reasonable to point out that only around 59.8% of the electorate actually voted. Politicians would no doubt seek to ascribe such a low turnout to apathy, but I suspect it has much more to do with widespread disillusionment with political parties generally. Combine that low turnout with Labour’s share of the vote (generally reported as being 34%, but that’s a rounding up), and Labour has probably been elected with a landslide majority having received the votes of a smidgeon under one person in five who was entitled to vote. In no sense is that a ringing endorsement of Labour’s manifesto, and in no sense does it entitle Labour politicians to claim a popular (as opposed to a constitutional) mandate.
I don’t imagine it will stop them from trying to make such claims, and those opposed to Net Zero will probably be dismissed as anti-democrats. In that respect I have two comments:
First, I am finally persuaded (after having had increasing doubts for some time) that our first past the post system isn’t fit for purpose. This week’s election result is an affront to democracy. As the BBC observed, in the above article:
The gap between the share of total votes won by the winning party in the 2024 general election and the share of Parliamentary seats won is the largest on record.
It seems that Labour’s MPs were elected on average by roughly 28,000 votes, while Reform obtained an MP for every 800,000+ votes it received. For the sake of balance I should point out that the Green Party also received a paltry return in terms of MPs for its vote share (though it wasn’t so badly disadvantaged as Reform). Millions of voters have effectively been disenfranchised.
Second, Reform’s more than four million votes might have yielded a return of only five MPs, but at last there will be a strident and persistent anti-Net Zero voice in Parliament. I suspect that the Parliamentary authorities will offer Reform little opportunity to make the case against Net Zero, but with Nigel Farage now in Parliament, we can expect a lot of noise. I suspect that Ed Miliband and his colleagues are about to discover that his plans to accelerate Net Zero will be a lot harder to implement and a lot less popular than they currently assume. Unless they acknowledge the reality of the situation fairly quickly, I strongly suspect that for all their skewed landslide victory, Labour won’t get a second term in 2029. The mould is shattering before our eyes, and our complacent politicians are the ones who are shattering it. If Labour presses ahead with vigorous “world-leading” climate plans, I think the next five years might make the upheavals of the post-Brexit vote years look calm indeed. Interesting, but turbulent, times await.
Climate Scepticism 
Food for thought:
“Why a disillusioned, angry Britain voted for change
A tour of Britain’s provincial towns reveals a restless nation with no love for its political class.”
https://www.politico.eu/article/britain-uk-election-keir-starmer-labour-party-conservative-party-british-politics-voter-disillusionment/
…For this is not a story of Britain lurching to the left. This is a story about something deeper — about broken promises and broken trust; about failing public services and household bills you can’t pay; a collective lust for change. It’s about a deep disillusionment with politics.
The tidal wave that swept away the Conservative Party on Thursday night is not so different to the anti-establishment wave currently enveloping Emmanuel Macron in France, and perhaps soon Joe Biden in America.
The public mood in Britain is acrid, and will leave Starmer with the shortest of honeymoons to deliver….
…Despite Starmer’s landslide, Labour’s overall vote share was far lower than in 1997 or 2001. Actual voter turnout was the second-lowest in a century. There is no nationwide wave of joy at this result….
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Meanwhile, with utter predictability, I give you the Guardian’s take:
“‘Keir Starmer take note’: UK’s green transition must start now, say experts
Labour’s victory, alongside strong Green performance, gives next PM mandate to act boldly on net zero, say campaigners”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/jul/05/keir-starmer-green-transition-must-start-now-say-experts
…The Green party also had its strongest ever general election performance, quadrupling its representation in parliament.
This, coupled with Labour’s wide margin of victory, gives Keir Starmer, the next prime minister, a strong mandate to take bold action on net zero and nature, experts and campaigners said.
Ed Matthew, campaigns director at the E3G thinktank, said: “Dependence on oil and gas has driven the cost of living crisis. By delaying and damaging the clean energy policies that could cut energy bills, Rishi Sunak pitched the Conservatives against every UK household. It was a catastrophic political blunder.”
Starmer must fulfil his manifesto pledge, which called for the UK to become a “clean energy superpower”, said Matthew. “The landslide means Starmer now has a historic public mandate to accelerate climate action, invest in the industries of the future, and restore UK climate leadership,” he added. “The UK is back in the race to net zero.”…
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“Houses and pylons: Labour’s biggest business challenges
The party’s targets of building 1.5m homes over five years and decarbonising the electricity grid by 2030 look a stretch”
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/nils-pratley-on-finance/article/2024/jul/05/houses-pylons-labour-biggest-business-challenges
…Now consider the scale of Labour’s ambition on the generating side: double onshore wind, triple solar power, and quadruple offshore wind by 2030. Meanwhile, Great British Energy – the state-owned company that will partner with local authorities in local power schemes and with the private sector in novel technologies such as floating off-shore wind – will take time to set up. Nor does its capitalisation of £8.3bn over the life of the parliament sound like gamechanging money when National Grid alone intends to invest £30bn in the same period.
Analysts at the investment bank Jefferies think that “Labour’s goal to have a net zero grid by 2030 appears to be an unrealistic target, even with steady progress”. One energy expert it consulted concluded that “even if the new government executed every project in the pipeline, had linear interconnector growth, and electricity demand on the lowest end of the range, the country would still miss the target by 25%.” The 2030 ambition – one of the central manifesto pledges for growth – looks extremely challenging.
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— Daily Mail reporting from Southend today after Labour had taken over from the Tories
— Somebody on X, also today
Speaking for myself, I’m not interested in the FPTP debate. We are where we are, I assume for the rest of my lifetime.
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The green transition (expensive renewable electricity) and economic growth are uneasy bedfellows.
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I am interested in a much more effective opposition on Net Zero, given all that’s being said about a massive mandate for it. Let’s see how that goes
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Hakinmaster, sorry you had to post that three times today get pasta the algorithms wrongly putting you in spam.
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However, it’s also important to recognise that voters might well vote differently if the voting system was more proportional.
Yes. They are more likely to vote for the “minor” parties if PR is used, because they know that their vote for them isn’t wasted. That means Labour would almost certainly have got fewer votes.
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I suspect Labour were hoping for (and expecting) a much bigger share of the vote, which would have bolstered their claims of a popular mandate. This graph illustrates that all of the polls failed to predict just how low a share of the vote Labour would get and the majority in fact predicted in excess of 40%.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GRvLVKUboAAn9W8?format=png&name=900×900
So they didn’t get the popular mandate they were hoping for in order to justify pummelling the country harder and faster with the pre-existing and already profoundly undemocratic Net Zero agenda. So now they’ve just got to pretend that they did, even though most of the country knows they didn’t.
It’s going to be the shortest honeymoon ever and the bride may even storm out of the nuptial suite before the groom gets his end away.
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I shall only post once upon this issue for reasons already given elsewhere.
Firstly if people refuse to exercise their franchise, they cannot complain if those that did voted for parties that proceed to pass legislation that those that didn’t vote don’t agree with.
secondly, I don’t recall any adverse discussion of the First Passed the Post system before the election. only afterwards when parties adversely affected by it are now complaining.
Lastly, although it is a long time since I read up upon these issues, I seem to recall that alternatives to FPTP have their disadvantages, some of which are quite severe.
I argue that the landslide obtained by Labour is legitimate according to the law operating on July 4th and thus, according to our laws, Labour has a legitimate mandate . Opposition parties have the right, and mandate to oppose.
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A comical Govt built on sand and the Reform tide’s coming in
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The “loveless landslide” they are calling it. Very apt.
The reason why so many people are only now seriously questioning FPTP is because it has delivered a set of election statistics so blatantly absurd that they make a mockery of the very concept of democracy. It’s never been so obvious before. For perhaps the first time in British history, the FPTP voting system has delivered a government which demonstrably has no popular mandate. I think this has arisen because the governing party was so despised and the official ‘opposition’ party was politically almost indistinguishable from the governing party. FPTP was probably sensible when there was a clear political divide between the main parties. Now that they all sing from the same hymn sheet, it serves only to stifle political dissent from the mainstream by severely disadvantaging new parties which challenge the status quo. It’s got to go.
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Thanks for all comments. I think Alan’s raises the most thought-provoking issues, so is the one I will respond to with a point by point comment, though it’s perhaps unfair of me, as Alan did say he would comment only once, so may not feel inclined to respond. As it happens, I accept the validity of his comments, but I feel that there are significant nuances to the discussion:
Firstly if people refuse to exercise their franchise, they cannot complain if those that did voted for parties that proceed to pass legislation that those that didn’t vote don’t agree with.
At face value, this comment is, of course, true. But it’s fully true only if people failed to vote out of apathy and/or ignorance, and while there must always be an element of that, I suspect the low turnout was down to disillusionment more than apathy. Had I note had an SDP candidate, I might have resorted to spoiling my ballot. I was discussing the election result yesterday with someone who made it very clear to me that the reason she didn’t vote this time round was because she felt that there was nobody deserving of her vote. A badly-paid working-class person, she was far from ignorant. She had considered what was on offer, and decided she wanted none of it.
secondly, I don’t recall any adverse discussion of the First Passed the Post system before the election. only afterwards when parties adversely affected by it are now complaining.
I am not sure that is entirely true. It’s certainly correct that our voting system was not a major issue during the general election, but that’s no reason why it shouldn’t become an issue now that it has produced such an absurd result. NB I say that it is an absurd result, not because it’s a result that I don’t like, but because the figures are so blatantly obvious. As Jaime has just commented: “FPTP was probably sensible when there was a clear political divide between the main parties. Now that they all sing from the same hymn sheet, it serves only to stifle political dissent from the mainstream by severely disadvantaging new parties which challenge the status quo. It’s got to go.” In fairness, too, some political parties, such as the Lib Dems, called in their manifesto for FPTP to go. When asked about it after the election, their deputy leader said she thought they would continue to campaign against FPTP, even though the Lib Dems didn’t do too badly out of it this time round. The problem is that debate about it has long been stifled because the two main parties do so well out of it, and continue to do so even as their combined vote share is collapsing. Even when they lose an election badly, they know that when the other lot screw up their turn in power, it’ll be their turn again next. This is no way to run a country.
Lastly, although it is a long time since I read up upon these issues, I seem to recall that alternatives to FPTP have their disadvantages, some of which are quite severe.
Absolutely, and this is the main case against them. I have been painfully aware of those disadvantages, ever since I studied A level politics well over 40 years ago. Those disadvantages remain. But the advantages that were always claimed for FPTP seem less and obvious now. I think it is at least time for a proper debate on the issue.
I argue that the landslide obtained by Labour is legitimate according to the law operating on July 4th and thus, according to our laws, Labour has a legitimate mandate . Opposition parties have the right, and mandate to oppose.
I agree, as I hope I made clear in my article. My claim, though, is that when they claim a popular mandate, such a claim is illegitimate. Although it’s only my opinion, I suspect – given the lack of meaningful debate about Net Zero and its costs and other issues during the election campaign – that even those who did vote Labour or Lib Dem weren’t positively endorsing Labour’s (or the Lib Dems’) energy policies; rather they were voting to remove the hated Tories from office. The point on which I tried to conclude my short discussion in the article is that I think (and certainly hope) that Labour will be in for a rude awakening if they push hard for accelerated Net Zero. Then, as the costs and problems of it become obvious, they will get a rude awakening. Only then will they realise that the voters weren’t giving them a popular mandate for their mad energy policy at all. Interesting times ahead.
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“Labour’s Potemkin landslide”
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/labours-potemkin-landslide/
Something pretty big is missing from Labour’s historic landslide: the voters. Keir Starmer has won 63 per cent of the seats on just 33.8 per cent of the votes, the smallest vote share of any modern PM. Lower than any of the (many) pollsters predicted. So Labour in 2024 managed just 1.6 percentage points higher than the Jeremy Corbyn calamity in 2019 – and less than Corbyn managed in 2017. ‘But for the rise of the Labour party in Scotland,’ says Professor John Curtice, ‘we would be reporting that basically Labour’s vote has not changed from what it was in 2019.’ And that’s on the second-lowest turnout in democratic history.…
…Let’s look only at Labour vote shares in recent elections: Starmer’s result is middle of the road. He has cleaned up Labour, to be sure, but he has emphatically not widened its vote in the way that Tony Blair did in 1997. The change in England only is even smaller (0.6 points) because the bulk of the increase in Labour votes was due to the SNP collapse in Scotland...
…Anyway, none of that matters now. Vote share will not be part of the conversation. But it is relevant in understanding how illusory Starmer’s majority is: a Potemkin landslide which looks impressive but, upon inspection, does not have very much behind it. And this has implications. It is often said that Britain is an anomaly, parliament swinging to the left when Europe moves to the right. But have the British voters, really, moved left? The Lib Dems have more seats (71) than Reform (5) but Ed Davey’s men won fewer votes (3.5 million) that those of Nigel Farage (4.1 million). So it would be deeply misleading to take this parliament as a proxy for UK public opinion.
expected Starmer to win a big majority, but neither I nor anyone else expected how low the Labour support would be. This time yesterday, I thought that Labour would be in for ten years. Today, seeing the shallowness of Starmer’s support, I think there is all to play for next time around. The voters have turned away from the Tories but did emphatically not turn towards Labour. Never in a century of elections have the two main parties had a lower combined vote share. All told, the next five years in British politics will be thrillingly unpredictable.
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And John Curtice in the Telgraph:
“Don’t be misled, Britain did not flock to Labour
Sir Keir may have won the election – but he was barely any more successful than Jeremy Corbyn in 2019″
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/07/06/britain-did-not-flock-to-labour-election/
Voters firmly rejected the Conservatives on Thursday. But they far from flocked to Labour instead.…
...Yet the one thing that Sir Keir Starmer did not do was to secure much change in his party’s level of support.
In Wales, where Labour runs the devolved government, its support fell by four points. In England the increase was just half a per cent. Only in Scotland, where its support was up by 17 points, did voters turn afresh to the party in large numbers. However, there the party’s support was boosted by the travails of the SNP, which were down 15 points. Meanwhile, two in five voters, a near-record stayed at home. This was especially the case in Labour held seats. In short, despite all the talk of a changed Labour party, Sir Keir Starmer was barely any more successful in winning votes than Jeremy Corbyn had been in 2019.
Meanwhile, he was well short of his predecessor’s 41 per cent support in 2017, let alone the 44 per cent Sir Tony Blair won in 1997. In England and Wales, Labour only gained support where the party appeared best-placed locally to defeat the Conservatives. In seats where it started off in second place to a Tory incumbent its vote increased on average by six points. Elsewhere in England where the opportunity to turf out a Tory did not exist, Labour’s support was markedly down – on average by five points.
…While voters have sent a clear message that they are looking for better government, many are far from convinced that Labour can provide what they seek.…
In short, Labour won a landslide victory, not because people liked what it had to offer, but because it wasn’t an incumbent government party. It benefited from dissatisfaction with the Tory UK government and with the SNP Scottish government. It has a mandate, but not as we know it.
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“The really interesting 2024 election numbers”
https://thinkingcoalition.substack.com/p/the-really-interesting-2024-election
…The more interesting data, which has largely been ignored is the actual number of votes that parties achieved. When looking at vote shares, you are looking at a combination of vote numbers and voter turnout which gets confusing. So the first big surprising statistic for me was that the top four parties all lost votes between 2019 and 2024. They lost an aggregate 8.5 million votes, of which 7 million were lost by the Fake-Conservatives alone.
It is clear that the election was primarily a massive no vote against the Fake-Conservatives who achieved their lowest voter share in more that one hundred years. The extent of the rout is phenomenal. It is also clear from the above chart that the voters were not at all inspired by the programs offered by the other three major parties.
If you look at actual votes received, you can see the quite stunning result that Labour actually also received far fewer votes in 2024 (around 9.6 million) than in 2019 and 2017 even though they achieved the paradoxical outcome of obtaining many more seats in 2024. In reality the party is far less popular under Sir Kier Starmer than under the “unelectable” Jeremy Corbyn and its apparent success is really just a reflection of the Fake-Conservatives failure.…
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I will comment largely because I wish to correct a potential misunderstanding. I was responding to comments that Labour doesn’t (or shouldn’t) have a mandate because of deficiencies in the FPTP voting system. I am fully aware of those deficiencies, but don’t have sufficient knowledge to argue for any alternatives for future elections. I am aware that FPTP tends to produce strong governments, so am grateful that we have largely avoided the perils of weak ones.
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Peston:
Starmer:
Sounds like a threat to me!
https://x.com/implausibleblog/status/1809576354683252939
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Forget the Great Reset.
UK is gonna need a “Bigger Reset”
Starmer has a “clear mandate” to deliver it.
Blimey, the hubris is off the scale with this one.
https://x.com/PeterSweden7/status/1809336259266900329
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Let me place my cards on the table. Ever since I returned to the U.K. I have lived in a solidly blue constituency, but have dutifully (in my mind) cast my vote unsuccessfully for Labour. For part of that we endured a time when the Conservatives could not form a government by themselves and had to form a coalition. I don’t recall much discussion then about mandates and indeed major items of legislation were passed. But now, with Labour more or less holding its vote share but the Conservatives massively losing theirs, there is discussion here about whether or not Labour has the right to follow through with its policies. Sheeze! For the first time in several decades I voted for the winning team.
it would seem that with the rise in popularity of several smaller parties the FPTP system may not be fit for purpose. But alternatives may not allow one to vote for individuals which I would consider a massive negative. In the past I have commented that if I lived in some constituencies with impressive Tory candidates that I consider worthy, I would have voted for them.
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Alan,
I completely understand what you are saying, and why you are saying it. Your contributions are valuable and valued – the main thing is that I think we, as a country, need to talk about the implications for democracy of a Parliamentary outcome that is so out of sync with the votes cast. When a party can obtain just over one third of votes cast (with more than 2/5 of the electorate not voting) but can obtain almost 2/3 of the seats in the House of Commons, thus allowing it to do whatever it wants (and I suspect it will be able to whatever it wants, with a largely sympathetic but profoundly undemocratic House of Lords offering no meaningful check at all), it seems to me that there is something badly wrong.
I am not doing a Trump, and I am not suggesting that Labour has no right to govern – clearly it won fair and square within the way our constitution works, having fought a ruthlessly efficient election campaign which saw it focus on the seats it thought it could win, rather than piling up tens of thousands of (wasted) surplus votes in safe Labour seats. If it can govern the country as efficiently, I will be very pleased indeed.
However, while it must be tempting for Labour, after 14 years in the wilderness, to decide it’s going to do whatever it wants, I think Starmer would be wise to understand that most of the country isn’t with him. A more consensual style of politics is to be welcomed, and the avoidance of controversial and damaging policies such as net zero would be sensible, IMO. If Labour does plough on rapidly with its net zero plans, I think it will very quickly regret it. It doesn’t enjoy much popular support, despite the bizarre election result, and such support as it has can be alienated very quickly if it proceeds to do as the Tories did and screw everything up.
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By the way, I chose the title of my piece with care. “When is a mandate not a mandate?”. In my opinion, that’s when an undoubted constitutional mandate isn’t remotely a popular mandate.
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Perhaps turnout would have greater if ballots included “None of the Above” as a voting option.
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Mark, I feel I’m dragging myself into this discussion against my own advice to keep out of it, and I am trying to do this in part. I wouldn’t for example comment on Jaime’s posts because I do try to avoid flame-wars.
I suppose the biggest question relates to whether those elected have (or should) follow the wishes of a majority of voters. In other words does democracy imply government by a popular majority? Although this might be preferred, I do so hope it isn’t a necessity. There are just so many instances where governments have had to follow paths and make decisions which are decidedly unpopular. Labour has won a landslide victory, and has a legitimate mandate. I hope it won’t use this to ramrod contentious legislation through, although I still contend that it would have a mandate to do it.
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Ron, I am sure it would have done so.
Alan, there is no right answer. Maybe FPTP is the least worst option (though for the first time in my life, I doubt it).
My main concern is that net zero obsessives will kid themselves, and will try to kid us, that they have a popular mandate for net zero. They don’t, however much the electoral system means they have the power to try to press ahead with it.
I say try, because all realists, as opposed to deluded fantasists, understand that the plans aren’t deliverable, and that phenomenal amounts of money are likely to be wasted in trying.
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Well we could talk politics until the cows come home and disagree vehemently, as people do, but the cold hard data is in and it tells us that only 20% of those eligible to vote cast a vote for Labour. It tells us that Labour, after having unveiled its shiny new manifesto to the nation – including its supercharged Net Zero – managed to increase its share of the popular vote by just 1.6% compared to 2019 (when it lost), but bizarrely managed to secure a huge majority on the lowest ever share of the vote by any winning party. It tells us that the main opposition to Labour and the Conservatives, Reform, had the hardest time of any party in this election re. winning seats, but came third behind Labour and the Cons in the share of the national vote. Clearly, something is amiss and, whichever way you look at it, Labour has no popular mandate to govern based on the radical manifesto it presented to the nation. It does have a technical constitutional mandate which is historically out of kilter with the demos.
I thought at the very least that we here, regardless of our political persuasions, were all united in our unequivocal opposition to Net Zero based on (variously) its necessity, its practicality and an assessment of harms vs, benefits. Is this still the case I wonder?
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Credit to the Guardian, I think this is an excellent analysis, well worth a read. I think the conclusion is compelling:
“Labour put ‘safe’ seats at risk to target marginals. It paid off – but there’s a cost
The party’s landslide victory on only 34% of the vote was a masterpiece of electoral Jenga. But the taller the tower, the weaker the base”
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/jul/07/labour-safe-seats-marginals-landslide-victory-vote
Declines in the heartlands mean Labour are now spread thin, with more than half of their seats won with a majority of 20% or less. Labour face vulnerability on two wobbly wings; the huge haul of seats they gained from the Conservatives tend to be more economically moderate and socially conservative; and a restive urban heartland where they will face progressive pressure from a rising Green party and a band of independent firebrands. A big Commons majority may not feel so comfortable with so many MPs looking anxiously over their shoulders, and a coalition of such intense and conflicting local pressures will be hard to hold together.
In Jenga, players build taller towers by taking blocks from the bottom and balancing them on top – the taller the tower, the weaker the base. This election was a masterpiece of electoral Jenga. Labour put its heartlands at risk to throw everything – organisation, messaging, policy – at Tory-held battlegrounds. The gamble paid off handsomely, with a landslide built on little over a third of the votes cast.
But it will not take much to bring this teetering tower tumbling down. A swing of under 6% to the Conservatives would be enough to entirely wipe out Labour’s majority. Labour’s rise has been dizzying. Now they must undertake the high-wire act of government with no electoral safety net. If they fail, a brutal fall could follow, and soon.
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Labour, the Liberal Democrats, and the Conservatives are all in favour of Net Zero. There is a mandate for Net Zero. It is considered controversial in these pages, but not elsewhere.
Hopefully that will change before too much damage is done.
There is also the possibility that everything will go swimmingly. Maybe we sceptics are the irrational ones.
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Jit, there is indeed a mandate for net zero, albeit arguably by default, since unless voters opted for the SDP or Reform, they were faced with no alternative to net zero, given the nature of the Uniparty.
However, I still maintain that there is no popular mandate for Miliband’s accelerated version of net zero, including decarbonising the Grid by 2030.
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Where is this ‘mandate’ for Net Zero? It was introduced by stealth and with not even a proper parliamentary debate at the fag end of May’s premiership, as a statutory instrument addition to CCA 2008. Although Johnson waffled on about his Green ambitions before the election in 2019, nobody was taking any notice (they should have). The Tories were voted in on a ticket to ‘Get Brexit Done’ – which they also screwed up. Net Zero did not feature. There was no popular endorsement of Net Zero in 2019 and there has been no popular endorsement of mad marxist Ed’s acceleration of Net Zero in 2024. The main parties have agreed on a political consensus re. Net Zero and it is law anyway, thanks to Theresa May. There is not even a proper constitutional mandate for Net Zero, let alone a popular mandate. Net Zero is the very antithesis of democratic policies and has been bolstered in the popular imagination only via incessant lies and propaganda from the media.
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Ruper Darwall weighs in on Labour’s conflicting priorities (excerpts)
Starmer’s challenge is compounded by Britain’s enfeebled economy. “Wealth creation is our number one priority. Growth is our core business,” he declared when he launched Labour’s election manifesto last month. “The only route to improving the prosperity of our country and the living standards of working people. And that’s why we made it our first national mission in government.”
Despite his manifesto pledge, Starmer knows that wealth creation is not his government’s top priority. As a matter of law, the Climate Change Act 2008 imposes on his government, as on its predecessor, a duty to reach net zero by 2050. If the courts are persuaded that individual policies interfere with that duty, they can overturn those policies. There is no corresponding duty to grow the economy.
Apart from Nigel Farage’s Reform party, now Britain’s third-largest party in terms of votes won, politicians of all other parties subscribe to the fiction that net zero is the growth opportunity of the 21st century. In this, they are aided by the economics commentariat that either downplays, covers up, or outright denies the existence of any trade-off between net zero and economic growth. It is another example of what FT columnist Janan Ganesh, writing of Democrats and the media cover-up of President Biden’s mental impairment, calls “liberal denialism.”
In Britain, net zero denialism extends to official advice provided by the Treasury and the Office for Budget Responsibility. In its net zero review, the Treasury asserts that “additional investment will translate into additional GDP growth.” The data falsifies the Treasury’s assertion. Between 2009 and 2020, decarbonization of power generation with large additions of wind and solar has seen a 15.5% increase in nameplate capacity produce 17.1% less electricity – a decline of 28.3% in output per unit of generating capacity. It is why Britain has some of the world’s most expensive electricity, destroying the competitiveness of its manufacturing industry and contributing greatly to Britain’s cost of living crisis, which, as Giles shows, has left 80% of British households either worse off or no better off after inflation since 2019.
Whatever pro-growth economic policies Starmer enacts, the supra-political commitment to net zero condemns the British economy to low growth or no growth, an historically high tax burden, and prolonged public sector austerity. It is hardly a formula for enduring popularity.
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2024/07/06/labours_net_zero_mandate_presages_economic_failure_151216.html
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I greatly appreciate the many here who have said since Friday the fateful words “Peter Hitchens may have had a point.”
Er, perhaps I am confusing a clear-headed and humble cliscep crowd (like the less sophisticated nanny from Southend who at least admitted her error) with activists who immediately blame the system and never themselves. Following in the footsteps of Ed Miliband himself. Inspirational.
So a dose of Hitchens from the last 24 hours seems worth it. He does of course agree with some of the above
Alan presumably would be less concerned than Peter if the new MPs are “filled with scorn for conservative ideas and people”. But always up for a heresy hunt? That may land very close to home for all of us.
Let’s hope the Hitchens hunch is entirely off the mark. But this was the reason I voted for the party which I judged had the best chance of defeating Labour in my own constituency. I was right in that choice, as Reform won considerably fewer votes – but enough to cause Labour to win the seat.
And win they did, in my patch and in the whole country. When Michael Crick was reported to have said “It’s not a Labour win, really” this response on X rang true
Elective dictatorship? I don’t really know what that means but we may soon learn. Yet it could have been avoided.
As for Hitchens his critics have been waxing lyrical on X. My favourite being the faux-vicar Calvin Robinson who asks if he is onboard with the uniparty. Perhaps we all are, without even knowing it.
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Ron, I liked Darwall’s conclusion, “The sooner Conservatives start making the case to ditch net zero, the better their prospect of reversing their defeat in 2029” because, although I am no Conservative, I am in favour of destroying the uni-party consensus on Net Zero. In fact, I think parliament-wide consensuses in general tend to defeat democracy, or at least put the topics (as per the CCA) beyond party politics. Regards, John C.
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All this talk of a mandate is interesting, but I’m unconvinced that it’s so very important. The reality is that Labour is in power with a huge majority – albeit in rather curious circumstances – and therefore has the clear authority to do whatever it wishes. So there would seem to be nothing to stop our new government from powering ahead with Net Zero – and especially with ‘clean’ electricity by 2030.
But will they? I think Starmer and Reeves – advised by Chief of Staff Sue Gray – are in charge and making the key decisions. And their key priorities would seem to be the economy (growth and the cost of living), the NHS (especially waiting lists) and prison reform, with other priorities, such as housebuilding, planning reform and immigration, although still very important not quite at the top of the list. I suspect that Net Zero is seen as an awkward embarrassment – especially by Reeves who is no fool and must see its potential to completely undermine her ambitions for the economy. I had even thought that, when Starmer spoke of taking ‘tough decisions’ with ‘raw honesty’ and ‘making them early’, he might have been referring to deferring (even cancelling) Net Zero – on the ‘Nixon goes to China’ principle; but I had to revise that on learning of the appointment of strongly pro-Net Zero Patrick Vallance as Science Minister. Nonetheless, I still have a feeling that the policy isn’t likely to get a lot of priority at this stage. If I’m wrong, it will underline just how foolish – and potentially vulnerable – our new masters are.
We’ll learn soon enough. If nothing else it’ll be interesting.
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I too would not wish to waste too much time on the question of there being a mandate, since I think it is largely academic. Firstly, no government needs to seek a mandate from the public to achieve net zero since it is already an obligation written into law. Those who ensured that it became a legal requirement did so without a mandate to do so, but that is now a done deal. What isn’t a done deal, however, is the achievement of the target. To do that would require a miracle, and it is not within the gift of the electorate to grant miracles to help government’s fulfil fanciful promises. As has been said several times already on his website, reality will bite sooner or later. When it does, hurt and recrimination will become the order of the day, and the Labour government will find no sympathy if they try to say to the electorate ‘Hey, but you asked us to do all of this’.
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Richard,
I understand what I think is your position, namely that only two parties stood any chance of forming the government after the election, and that of those two, the Tories were the lesser of two evils. Therefore voting Tory was important to keep Labour out, and a protest vote that didn’t achieve that was potentially self-indulgent and self-defeating (please forgive and correct me if I have misunderstood your argument).
However, some of us couldn’t stomach voting Tory, and the only option for us was a vote against the Uniparty. I couldn’t stomach voting for Reform, so I voted SDP, in what some might regard as a self-indulgent wasted vote. Perhaps it was, but I felt it was better than spoiling my ballot paper or not voting.
Although the next five years have the prospect of being rather alarming, I suspect the seeds of Labour’s destruction are already baked in, as I anticipate net zero arrogance and hubris based on their super-majority. Hubris that might well turn in to nemesis.
If we get really lucky and the Tories implode in the wake of their drubbing, then in five years’ time (or sooner if Labour’s energy policy has caused real damage) we might be on the verge of seeing the end of the Uniparty and the start of something different (which may be better, or may be worse, though the latter is difficult to imagine). Anyway, I fear the worst while hoping for the best.
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I wonder, did Hitchens spend five years incessantly whinging at Farage for standing down Brexit candidates in 2019, thus gifting the Tories a large majority, the same Tories who then went on to screw up Brexit, lock down the country for a bad cold, nuke the economy, mass inject the populace with an experimental untested gene ‘therapy’, allow hundreds of thousands of unvetted immigrants into the country, unleash Woke censorship upon us, inflict Net Zero policies upon the country and finally, in one last act of destruction, inflict upon us a Labour government by being deliberately crap for the last few years and by throwing an election? Did he whinge, whinge, whinge at the stupid Red Wall voters who switched allegiance to fluffy, likeable ‘Boris’ to get Brexit done? No, he’s just whinging at Reform voters because they quite rightly rejected the Tories and voted with their conscience, not being able to stomach the thought of awarding a Tory party which had so obviously betrayed voters and the country with a possible further term. Is he whinging about the large numbers of people who did vote Labour, despite knowing what they were promising to do in their election manifesto? Of course not. It’s all the fault of Reform voters and their ’emotional spasm’. Well Hitchens can sod off. The deck was stacked against us whichever way we voted and the Tories were set to lose bigly – courtesy of the fake Cons – even before Farage stepped in to lead Reform.
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Suella Braverman yesterday in the Telegraph:
The word “complacency” rings true. And had Reform’s support been lower, it would have been worse. You could almost imagine a scenario where the surviving Blues saw their mediocre result as an endorsement of their foregoing policies.
The Uniparty is real, on Net Zero at least. This destruction of the Tories gives them a chance to rebuild outside that consensus. Will they? I see Tom Tugendhat is launching his campaign. If I find more on the situation re: the next Tory leader I will comment on the “Post-election Blues” thread accordingly.
This, not the charade of the previous 6 weeks, is the key moment.
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Jaime,
I agree. Nobody made the Conservatives un-electable but the Conservatives. It turns out that a two-party FPTP system was an unstable arrangement that couldn’t last forever. I’ve no idea what will come next, so I will paraphrase David Steel:
Go back to your constituencies and prepare for anarchy.
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Richard: like Mark I think I understand your (and Hitchens’) position. There’s a contributor on the Spectator blog calling himself Old Fox (I think it’s a he) who’s been taking the same line since the election was called. I supported him initially but eventually changed my mind. But Old Fox has ploughed on getting quite rude to those of us who he says are responsible for Thursday’s grim result. I’ve just posted this rejoinder:
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Jaime (at 3.10pm today), thank you for (i) your excellent, succinct description of Tory ‘achievements’ since the election of Boris, and (ii) for indicating that, although Hitchens’ whingeings fail to acknowledge it, the deck was stacked against us whichever way we voted on Thursday.
The latter made me think of Yates’ poem “The Second Coming” in which ‘things fall apart; the centre cannot hold’ and ‘The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity’. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43290/the-second-coming
Regards, John C.
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Nigel Farage speaks often and forcefully to our climate change and net-zero scepticism (denialism in my case), but how interested are the Reform rank and file in our topic? My observation, based on its near total absence from the publicity put about by the Hampshire candidates, is that it is not an issue that exercises them. Could be the shared general reluctance to speak out on technical matters, or a top-down policy directive not to dilute the primary narrative of illegal you-know-who’s but, either way, we may be disappointed with how vigorous their opposition will be to the Milliband agenda.
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John C,
That Yates reference is very good since his poem nicely captures a sense of unease and foreboding. What I should have said before was, “Go home to your constituencies and prepare for the Second Coming”. I still don’t honestly know what next year’s Spiritus Mundi will look like but I suspect that the deficit between a constitutional and popular mandate may have a bearing. But as I say, as far as net zero is concerned it won’t really be an issue of a false mandate so much as a dawning reality.
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In the interests of balance I have recently been following several ‘left wing’ Facebook groups in addition to my usual feeds,and unlike the sensible discussion/ disagreements and comment that one sees here and NALOPKT and indeed on many ‘Far Right’ forums where people can construct some kind of argument either for or against a subject there is no mention of any labour policies and how they may be enacted or recieved by the country.
The entire outputs of said groups is a constant outpouring of bile towards anyone that they dont agree with ranging from personal attacks of the utmost rudness to what I would regard as defamatory statements of the worst kind .one theme that comes to mind which is widly ‘liked’ likens the new MP for Clacton as directly comparable to A Hitler.
The point of these observations is that to my mind if these folks are typical Labour supporters we as a country will have a very awkward 4 years coming.
Chin up
LL
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“Gentlemen!” cried the poet. “You have disemvowelled me!”
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Croatian commonly is disenvowelled but then r is used instead. So grt strffrd.
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Well yes. If you eat, you eventually ate.
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Lordelate,
Sorry it took me two hours to find and dig your comment out of spam.
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Thanks for looking!
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To paraphrase Henry II, “Will no one rid us of these meddlesome politicians?”
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“‘Disproportionate’ UK election results boost calls to ditch first past the post
Campaigners for electoral reform say outcome has renewed pressure for proportional representation”
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/jul/08/disproportionate-uk-election-results-boost-calls-to-ditch-first-past-the-post
An interesting conclusion:
…Campaigners were hopeful that a Labour government could result in reform after delegates at the 2022 party conference, including from the major unions Unison and Unite, backed PR.
Keir Starmer said during his leadership campaign in 2020 that the party had to “address the fact that millions of people vote in safe seats and they feel their vote doesn’t count”. Since then his official spokesperson has said he has a “longstanding view against proportional representation”.
Insiders say there is growing support for reform among the Labour party ranks. “More progress has been made internally then at any stage before,” Gilmore said.
Martin Smith, a professor of politics at the University of York, said it was likely that self-interest would be the factor that would push the main political parties to change the voting system.
“The more the party system fragments, the more disproportionate the electoral system becomes, and that fragmentation is not going to go away,” he said. “There’s a point when both Labour and the Conservatives will see the current system as threatening their interests, and then they may start to think: ‘OK, we need to change this.’”
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We can moan all we like about FPTP, we’ve got it & the chances of it being replaced in the foreseeable future, is zero.
PR produces it’s own problems, as Scotland shows, the Green tail, wagging the SNP dog.
Farage is incapable of doing detail & has an attention span of a Boris Johnson, he’ll grandstand a bit, then piss off to the pub. If his, Tice’s & Anderson’s egos survive a full Parliamentary term, it’ll be a surprise.
We can forget Reform doing anything worthwhile in opposing Net Zero, is remote.
The industry is already getting the begging bowls out, pleading for more “Support”
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On the subject of Hitchens, he appears to have gone from excessive whinging to extreme (and uncalled for) sniping:
https://x.com/ClarkeMicah/status/1810648477593928037
Extraordinary.
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Regarding Hitchens, I always preferred his brother, I must say.
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“Why we must have proportional representation
Labour’s phoney landslide has made a mockery of the principle of ‘one person, one vote’.”
https://www.spiked-online.com/2024/07/11/why-we-must-have-proportional-representation/
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I never thought I would agree with a Green Party MP, but I think this is pretty compelling:
“The Green party won four seats when it should have been 40. Surely it’s clear that Britain needs electoral reform”
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/jul/11/green-party-four-seats-labour-proportional-representation
This injustice isn’t just about the Greens. It’s about the 8.7 million voters who didn’t vote for Labour, Conservatives or Liberal Democrats – but only elected 45 MPs. Labour only earned a million more votes, at about 9.7m, but won 412 MPs. Labour took 10% more votes than the smaller parties and independents, but won almost 10 times as many seats in parliament. Read that again and let it sink in.
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I took a break from Cliscep and this thread after my angry comment on Sunday. (I was angry but unlike Spectatorian Old Fox, perhaps, I wanted to examine that emotion and the fear behind it and, if possible, move on. Not having a pseudonym helps with that. What a horrible place social media becomes without that breakwater for so many. Anyway.)
Then Monday or Tuesday I met a neighbour at the bus stop, both heading the ~50 mins to Bristol. He’s the friendliest, most helpful guy in my street and, as before, we got talking. But more so. He told me he had joined the Labour Party in 1970 (aged ~20, I think) and has voted that way ever since. My dad was that way with the Tories I intimated. (But I’m not that kind of guy. I’ve voted for at least five parties since I was 18.) Anyway, I listened. I made clear I thought the jury was out on Keir Starmer, though I agreed with him on freeing up regulation to build more homes, for example, and to make the NHS more efficient. My friend was clearly a big fan of the new PM but the chat remained friendly. He seemed to search in his mind for what possibly I could be hesitant about. And then mentioned one issue: the trans stuff and the ‘culture war’ about it, which he thought didn’t matter at all. Live and let live. I gave a bit of the other side. Women’s prisons, young kids. He actually seemed to agree on all that. He really doesn’t know much, in my terms. (Or Helen Joyce’s. Good chat with the Spectator a few hours ago.)
But the key point for Cliscep is that he didn’t mention climate or energy. He’s aware some people are concerned about the trans area though. And this didn’t surprise me one bit. It is ahead in the pecking order, even though this Labour man regrets it’s even in the pecking order. It’d be good to work out why.
Reform didn’t come up either. I let him choose. It is his week. And I think we’re still friends 😉
There are some good comments here I’ve only just read. More anon, perhaps.
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Richard, have been unable to vote for so long and have gotten used to it. But I deeply regret being unable to give your latest effort one (or more if I were being deceitful).
You raise an issue that has worried me for many years and which caused fire storms when I frequented other climate locations. That matter is whether I (and you lot) are just too concerned with climate change and don’t give due concern to other matters that are of greater concern to the general voting public. I don’t necessarily imply that greater concern = greater importance. Anyway it has made my day (already) that you had that conversation and have communicated it to us (=me).
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Alan, I’ve liked it for you.
Regarding not giving due prominence to matters outside climate, I have admitted for some time that the vast bulk of humanity couldn’t give a shrug about it. Then on one extreme you have what has been called a “climate industrial complex” and on the other a handful of sceptics, plus a few perhaps with genuine vested interests.
Of course, normal folk don’t have time to ponder the true scale of the threat humanity faces. They trust that ultimately their government is doing/will do the right thing. The media is bulging with propaganda about the necessity of Net Zero, etc, how painless it will be, for wallets and freedom and wildlife. They will see climate action as virtuous, and its opponents as immoral.
Only once you have taken the red pill do matters become clear! The question is, what damage will be wrought before the cause of that damage becomes clear to the man on the Bristol Omnibus?
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Oh dear, Hitchens still on ‘I told you so’ mode re. Reform voters. Allison Pearson drops a truth bomb on him on X which explains why those who DO understand the importance of having a rational national energy policy could NOT vote Tory:
https://x.com/AllisonPearson/status/1811661333269450975
I would only add:
Tories deliberately made themselves unelectable and thus handed power to Labour by default.
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Alan: Thanks, that means a lot. The problem of focus, yet necessary broadmindedness, of climate blogs isn’t an easy circle to square.
Jit: “the man on the Bristol Omnibus”. That made me laugh out loud. But it seems to be mostly students on board once you’re there and they have, of course, elected a Green MP in one central section. Always work to do.
Jaime: My own forecast, and the reason I mentioned fear, is very close to Adam Gallon’s above
I hope that’s wrong and that Robin, for example, is right. That can always happen with the future.
On the Tories I think about the MPs, after the Brexit vote, who thought Andrea Leadsom made sense as one of the two candidates to present to members. As you’ll remember she blew up within days so Theresa May took the reins. And the MPs who made such a great choice? The ones crowing about Brexit. The rest of the disasters, not least Net Zero, followed from that dumbness. Now we have to hope that Net Zero sceptics get even more street smart.
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You won’t be surprised Richard to hear that I disagree with your and Adam Gallon’s assessment of Farage.
I’m delighted that he and four other Reform candidates won their seats – an extraordinary achievement after barely four weeks of campaigning. Although I don’t always agree with him, for the first time for many years I feel that I’m represented in the HoC. In particular for the first time since the halcyon days of Peter Lilley we have someone in the House can talk sense re climate change – that alone is worthwhile.
Farage is a successful and experienced politician – remember some of his excellent interventions during his many years in the European parliament (following a accomplished and extraordinarily successful campaign in the UK). And then the remarkable way in which he engineered the Brexit campaign. It’s because of these successes that I think there’s a real possibility that his ambitions for Reform may be realised. And it seems his opponents fear that possibility – which is why he and his colleagues are coming under concerted attack from politicians and the media.
Perhaps you and Adam might be interested to read the transcript of his speech at the Reform rally at Birmingham. It can be accessed HERE . You may not like his style, but surely you agree that he talks a lot of sense?
I believe that his record demonstrates that the ‘cannot do detail’, ‘Johnson-like attention span’ and ‘piss off to the pub’ accusations are baseless.
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Robin, I did say, after quoting Adam
That was sincere.
I haven’t read it yet but I trust you that it’s good content, well expressed, as seen by any climate sceptic.
I also don’t have a problem with Farage’s style, though I know others do. He’s a public schoolboy and so am I. And so was Labour Party pioneer Clement Attlee. Same public school in fact. And when Attlee won the general election against Churchill in 1945 my father was head boy. So the headmaster suggested to ‘Tyrwhitt-Drake’ that he might write a letter of congratulations. And Dad, I kid you not, replied “I’ve been campaigning for the Conservatives, sir, and I’d rather not.” A decade or so later Attlee, now retired from politics, sat down on a bench at Haileybury to watch the cricket. (He was a fanatic about the game and about the school, strangely enough. Any biography will confirm that.) Dad was already sitting the other end of the same bench so he turned to the great man, told the sorry story and apologised. And Attlee put his hand on his knee and said “Don’t worry, old boy, if I had been in your shoes I’m sure I would have done the same thing.”
Different world huh? Anyway, I told this story to my friend on the Omnibus to Bristol the other day. He found it interesting, at least, if not charming. He made the point that in all the photos Attlee looks very correctly dressed. I added that civil servants quickly learned that if a new situation came up it was best to say to the new PM “This is the way we’ve always done it” and Attlee would at once agree. Whereas Churchill was the exact opposite!
My neighbour didn’t go to public school nor to university – he told a good story about, having started as an apprentice at British Aerospace at Filton at 16, he rose up through the ranks (as a manager of engineering projects or of engineers) so that he would get asked what university he’d gone to. He was pretty open about the fact he thought some of the worst excesses (like a rape culture in Parliament, or close) were often the fault of Tory public schoolboys. I agreed with that by the way.
I wouldn’t have him down as a Farage fan. But you never know which way the next five years will go, once the Net Zero feathers really hit the fan.
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I would not have voted for Reform with Tice in charge. I haven’t trusted Farage since he stood down BXP candidates in Tory seats at the last election and publicly endorsed Johnson’s Brexit deal, which was only a slight improvement on May’s Brexit betrayal. But with their manifesto as written, and with Farage in charge, I judged my vote for Reform would be a more effective protest than a spoiled ballot, which was what I was planning. But the snap decision to replace Ben Habib as Deputy Leader with Tice doesn’t impress me much, nor does the appointment of the new chairman who has donated lots of money and who appears to have been chosen more to appease the ‘diversity’ crowd than for any real talent he might bring to the post. We shall see. I’m watching closely.
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Jaime: replacing Ben Habib as Deputy Leader makes sense as it’s obviously desirable to have Farage’s deputy in the HoC. And the new Chairman, Zia Yusuf, seems most impressive. Watch his remarkable speech at the Birmingham rally: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmfKDDblVcQ.
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That might be the case Robin but it seems they didn’t consult with Ben beforehand, just told him that he was being replaced.
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I’ve just watched Laura Kuenssberg on the BBC asking the CEO of Octopus Energy whether Milliband’s net zero targets are achievable. They were ‘perfectly possible’ he replied, before adding that the election result showed that the British people had rejected all of the ‘net zero negativity’.
At that point she could have said any of the following:
“Yes, but you would say that because you’re hardly likely to express doubts when there are so many lucratively subsidised Government contracts at stake.”
“Yes, but how can you say that when every single survey showed that climate change didn’t even register in the top 10 of the electorate’s concerns?”
“Yes, but neither party made anything of net zero in their campaigning. The Labour Party in particular made little of it considering how massively impactful it would inevitably be. Could that be because they knew it would be a vote loser?”
“Yes, but how can you say that when the electorate gave the Labour Party no greater share of the votes than they did when Corbyn was in charge?”
“But surely that is nonsense. We all know that the landside was as a direct result of the splitting of the right-wing vote and the failings of FPTP. It had nothing to do with the public’s passion for net zero.”
“Okay, so if it is so achievable, cut the bullshit and show us your plans for resourcing the massive infrastructure upgrade required.”
But she said nothing. BBC journalism at its finest?
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Very well laid out John. Total fail. Funnily enough I read this just as I noticed Matt Ridley’s
There are a number of replies to that, including Thus far, the BBC is the only outlet to have located an eyewitness. And, from all I’ve seen, that’s the best (and most damning of the US Security Services) piece of video from a eyewitness. The sort of thing that earned so much respect for our state broadcaster.
But I trust Matt on the general problem, shared with much of the MSM. As for Laura K’s contribution it’s atrocious. No wonder Ed Miliband thinks his arguments are unarguable.
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Food for thought for Mr Miliband:
“National Grid: Britain will remain dependent on gas for years”
https://www.yahoo.com/news/britain-remain-dependent-gas-years-155645585.html
Britain will be forced to rely on natural gas for years to come, National Grid has said, in a blow to Sir Keir Starmer’s green energy ambitions.
Demand for gas is now expected to be at least a fifth higher than previously expected in 2030, according to the National Grid Electricity System Operator (ESO).
Under three potential “pathways” to net zero by 2050, the ESO also predicted Britain will keep burning “unabated” gas for power – that is, without any form of mitigation such as carbon capture – until at least 2036.
It underlines the scale of the challenge facing Sir Keir and Ed Miliband, the Energy Secretary, as they attempt to rewire Britain’s energy system at a faster pace than envisioned by the Conservatives….
...The ESO said it expected gas demand to be between 642 and 724 terawatt hours in 2030, at least a fifth higher than the previous minimum and at the top end of what was predicted just a year ago.
The minimum predicted demand for gas in 2035 has also shifted upwards, from 331 terawatt hours to at least 433 terawatt hours.
Today, the country consumes the annual equivalent of 872 terawatt hours in natural gas.
Even after power sources such as wind and solar are generating the lion’s share of electricity, it will still be necessary to keep some gas-fired capacity in reserve to ensure the lights stay on, the ESO added.…
...The ESO’s report did not give reasons for the higher expected gas demand.
But Kathryn Porter, an independent energy analyst, said two likely reasons were regulator Ofgem’s decision to block a series of new electricity interconnectors with Europe, which were previously part of the ESO’s calculations, as well as the expected closure of various nuclear power plants this decade.
Ms Porter added: “It means you will just not be able to meet demand by the end of this decade without more gas.”...
…The ESO is due to be formally split off from National Grid later this year to become the government-owned National Electricity System Operator (NESO), a role that will see it take responsibility for planning the country’s energy system.
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“Labour divided over calls to scrap first past the post after landslide win”
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/jul/17/labour-divided-over-calls-to-scrap-first-past-the-post-after-landslide-win
The vote at Labour conference in 2022 was passed overwhelmingly and to loud cheers: the party should ditch the first past the post electoral system in favour of proportional representation (PR). So what happens next? Almost certainly nothing – at least for now.
When it comes to electoral reform, Labour is politely but completely divided. The members are hugely keen on the idea, with 140 local parties submitting the motion that was passed in autumn 2022. The leadership, in contrast, could barely be less interested.
And even though first past the post has just delivered Keir Starmer a big Commons majority, some in the party wonder whether the relatively shaky foundations of this mighty victory necessitate a rethink on electoral reform, if not immediately then before too long.
Sandy Martin, a former Labour MP who now chairs the Labour Campaign for Electoral Reform, says thinking about a move to PR should be a priority for the party, despite the way it benefited so handsomely from the current system.
“It would only take Reform and the Conservatives to unite and they might have a majority on the same scale we had this year,” he said. “But under PR, Labour would most likely be able to form a government quite comfortably with the Liberal Democrats or the Greens, and this would be preferable to a Conservative-Reform government.”...
What a shame it comes down to political calculation, rather than caring how democracy works (or doesn’t work).
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Shriver starts on the issue of ‘voting out of spite’ and getting something you hate even more that harms the UK deeply. Then it’s all about Miliband’s ‘moronic’ energy policy. Already.
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Utterly predictable . Completely wrong:
“Great British Energy is becoming a reality – bringing with it cheap, clean and secure energy – Ed Miliband”
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/jul/25/great-british-energy-ed-miliband-labour-clean-power
“The public voted for change at the general election. Perhaps nowhere more than when it comes to energy.”
I can’t disagree with the first sentence, but I certainly disagree with the second one.
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Miliband was on the record today as saying that GBE is going to turn a profit in 5 years. (Or was it yesterday? The days fly by.) As far as I know, no-one pointed out to him that its customers are going to be UK bill payers.
Having typed it as GBE, I propose to call it GBH.
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“No, Ed Miliband Does Not Have a ‘Mandate’ for His Net Zero Lunacy”
https://dailysceptic.org/2024/07/30/no-ed-miliband-does-not-have-a-mandate-for-his-net-zero-lunacy/
Our new Government seems, as expected, to have put climate and energy at the top of its agenda. The Secretary of State for Net Zero and Energy Security, Ed Miliband, is back in office with the energy brief he lost in 2010 and full of enthusiastic zeal for Net Zero, despite the public comprehensively rejecting Milibandism in 2015. But this enthusiasm belies serious instability in the relationship between the Government and the public. According to news reports, Miliband believes the public has given Labour a mandate to act on his green zeal. Here are some reasons why Miliband is wrong – there is no such mandate, and the Government would be foolish to let him act like a kid in sweetshop with the public’s credit card.…
Unfortunately the Daily Sceptic has included this in an increasing number of articles that are behind a paywall.
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I don’t agree with Peter North on everything but this three days ago came across as sincere
How would this affect our hopes for rationality to dawn in UK energy policy?
I feel it’s going to take massive character from any leader, of any party, to see off the Green Blob.
Any shortcuts taken in other areas (such as the crackdown after the riots) bode badly, both in themselves and in showing the lack of necessary character to confront the reality of Net Zero.
(I only touched on the riots here after the tumult had died down.)
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I don’t wish to be misunderstood – were I a German, I would not vote for AfD. I am not an AfD supporter, nor do I seek to downplay the possible danger of AfD achieving power in Germany.
However, I do think it’s reasonable to reflect on the fact that in the recent UK general election, Labour achieved a massive Parliamentary majority having received come first with 33.7% of the votes that were cast. The UK government insists that gives them a mandate for the mad plan to “decarbonise” the grid by 2030. Very few voices have been raised in protest against that claim.
In yesterday’s regional elections in Thuringia in Germany, AfD came first with 32.8% of the vote. Of course, Labour’s huge Parliamentary majority in the UK was the result of a concatenation of circumstances – first past the post voting, tactical voting to get the Tories out, and the right-wing vote split between Tories and Reform, whereas in Germany, with a PR system, the AfD won’t have anything like a majority of seats in Thuringia. Still, in terms of popular vote, the two results are remarkably similar. But there is a difference. Labour’s mandate to do what it wants seems to be unquestioned, especially by the establishment. In Germany, however, the establishment is queueing up to say that none of the other parties should co-operate with the party that won the most votes. Tricky business this democracy caper.
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The government has responded to the petition for a new election (though it doesn’t yet have to respond to the one for a net zero referendum, which is limping along and probably won’t even reach the 10,000 needed to trigger a response). The government does seem to have only one script. It would be funny if it wasn’t so annoying:
It will continue to deliver the manifesto, except the bits that it’s ignoring, and it will also do things that weren’t in the manifesto. That’s the point, Sir Keir, as is the fact you don’t have a popular mandate at all, with just one elector in five actually voting for you.
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That’s why three million wasn’t nearly enough. It needed to keep flying to 10 million. There’s still time of course, but sadly the British public has the attention span of a gnat and the initial enthusiasm has died down. Most Labour voters – who got us into this mess – still haven’t signed I am guessing.
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I think (though of course I don’t know) that some Labour voters may be experiencing buyer’s regret
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“Turnout inequality in UK elections close to tipping point, report warns
IPPR says elections could lose legitimacy because of falling turnout among groups such as renters and non-graduates”
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/jan/01/turnout-inequality-uk-elections-close-to-tipping-point-ippr
UK elections are “close to a tipping point” where they lose legitimacy because of plummeting voter turnout among renters and non-graduates, an influential thinktank has said.
Analysis by the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) found that the gap in turnout between those with and without university degrees grew to 11 percentage points in the 2024 general election – double that of 2019.
The turnout gap between homeowners and renters grew by nearly a quarter between the 2017 and 2024 elections, to 19 percentage points.
The findings suggest a growing disillusionment with politics among certain social groups, which is leading to increasingly unequal elections.
Parth Patel, an associate director of democracy and politics at IPPR, said: “We are close to the tipping point at which elections begin to lose legitimacy because the majority do not take part. That should be ringing more alarm bells than it is.”...
…Only one in two adults living in the UK voted in the July 2024 general election, the thinktank’s analysis showed, which was the lowest share of the population to vote since universal suffrage. Among registered voters, only three in every five cast a ballot….
I completely agree that the problem is caused by “growing disillusionment with politics”. That can only be solved by politicians being honest, and offering voters a real choice rather than the current Uniparty approach. Those problems will not be solved by the IPPR’s recommendations, IMO. These are, by the way:
This latter would involve recruiting poll workers from the population by lot, similar to selecting citizens to do jury service.
Desperate stuff.
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