The UK risks losing out to the US and EU in the global race to a net zero economy unless the government increases green investment by taking a stake in the companies of the future, a thinktank has said.
The left-leaning Institute for Public Policy Research said Britain needed a “national investment fund” (NIF) that would back new firms and secure a share of any future profits for the public as it called for the state to adopt a “Dragons’ Den” type approach to supporting enterprises.
You want to increase the speed of investment by getting bureaucrats to do it, yes?
If the IPPR could just put their face close to this door? So we can slam it in it?
Jesu there are some stupid people out there.
Wait a moment…. The Guardian pegging anything as “left-leaning”?!!
What insane shade of the spectrum would they be in for us sensible people?
Don’t we already have a government investment fund wasting money on bullshit companies?
We are dragging our feet on the way to economic and social suicide. Why will we lose if others get there first?
Indeed rhoda – winning a race to a net zero economy just means other countries can take their time about it.
Whoever wins the race to drilling a bore hole 100km deep is probably going to kill a few workers along the way. Better to come 2nd, unless you’re doing it as part of weapons research of course.
AEP’s brain went missing along these lines in the Telegraph yesterday: fifteen breathless paragraphs describing the technological advances which he reckons will make the current generation of heat-pumps obsolete; then a scornful condemnation of the UK population for ignoring state subsidies and not installing heat-pumps right now.
The UK risks losing out to the US and EU in the global race to a net zero economy
They make that sound like a bad thing
AEP: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/08/22/heat-pump-technology-soon-hot-even-britons-tempted/
AEP’s brain went missing along these lines in the Telegraph yesterday
Mostly missing for a number of years now.
Andrew Evans-Pritchard was born in Oxford. He was educated at Malvern College and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he read History.[1] His father was E. E. Evans-Pritchard, who was Professor of Social Anthropology at Oxford University from 1946 to 1970.
Pretty well self explanatory, one would think
When do we get to implement the Pol Pot solution to the university educated classes?
AEP went to Cambridge, yet his father went to Oxford. You can’t get a broader spectrum of knowledge and experience than that.
The picture of AEP stoop-planting rice in the paddies in a conical hat does have its attractions, Jim. As do the piles of skulls. But it’s all very eastern. I’d settle for one way helicopter rides over the North Sea. At least he’d get a last look at the windmills he’s so fond of.
Some might accuse me about being biased against those with an Oxbridge education. Which I’d hotly deny. I include most universities. I look upon it like snakes. Not all snakes are venomous. But sufficient are, it’s worth giving all long looking reptiles a wide berth. Or hitting them with a shovel to make sure.
The only proven method of producing all the plentiful, reliable, non-CO2 emitting power we need is nukes. In addition to lots of money, the government would need to abolish all the regulations that the Greens use to strangle them and hire the Saudis to shoot those road-blocking protesters.
As BiS points out, the only practical solution is one way helicopter rides.
The IPPR said the UK needed its own version of Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act
Yes, remember the senile pedo printed and spent $1.2 Trillion* to “reduce inflation”?
*Goldman Sachs estimate
In exchange for the financial backing, the state would become a part-owner of the business and share in its success and future profits. The IPPR said this would be analogous to the sort of investment provided to budding entrepreneurs by tycoons in the Dragons’ Den BBC TV series
The National Enterprise Board 2.0, but it’s 2023 so will consist of such wise luminaries as Camilla Batmanjelly, Peter Mandelson and Baroness Lawrence of Clarendon, OBE.
I’ve never been sure whether AEP converted to the green cult (his background* suggests he’s vulnerable) or whether he’s invested in a few snake oil schemes and is talking his own book. He has previously blithered on about the UK’s green future being powered by cheap Saharan solar, although he’s been quiet on that recently…
He keeps telling us that tech will lead us into the bright green future without pain, yet can’t seem to bring himself to express the logical conclusion that this means no need for subsidies and bans. Which is why he ends up writing contradictory nonsense, as noted by Paul in Somerset.
Of course if AEP is correct, then we don’t need to do anything, just let them boffins sort it out. Bans and subsidies will only entrench older, less effective tech and are thus entirely counter-productive. ICE and boiler bans are an admission that EVs and heat pumps are shit.
*posh twat
Grikath – the Graun is trying to figure out where they should be standing if Starmer wins the next election, given where he appears to be taking policy.
I read somewhere that growing peanuts in African countries was a great idea because they’d fix carbon and also enrich the soil as well as providing income. We should invest our pensions in that.
@ bis
Not so much biased as jealous.
Oxbridge gives far superior support to its undergraduates and graduate students. Half of my immediate family went to Oxbridge, half to other universities, so I have been able to observe the difference.
That is apart from the natural advantage supplied by superior intellects.
Why would I be jealous John? Evading university has enabled me to have a glorious life & now live in considerable luxury. I do feel some considerable pity for those who succumbed.
There’s an article by Joanna Williams in Spiked today. https://www.spiked-online.com/2023/08/23/the-hollowing-out-of-higher-education/
Where we get this old saw: Entirely missing from the current public discussion about universities is any sense of there being something worthwhile in the pursuit of knowledge as an end in itself. That it might be valuable to spend three years immersed in literature, philosophy or theoretical physics for no other reason than a love for the subjects themselves is lost in the talk of tuition fees, interest rates and taxpayer subsidies. Yer wot! School leavers should spend 3 years of their lives & put themselves in ruinous debt in pursuit of a hobby?
the natural advantage supplied by superior intellects.
We’ve seen some of these superior intellects in action, the last few
yearsdecades. Impressive it’s been, hasn’t it?Indeed bis.
I used to have access to the Mensa magazine and I’ve been to. Number of their gatherings, the stupid is frightening.
The magazine did one of those ask me a question sections. Someone wrote in and,
I paraphrase because it was nearly 40 years ago, but it was so stupid I’m fairly sure I’ve got the wording right: I read that the Chinese had compasses that pointed south, how did they do that.
“That is apart from the natural advantage supplied by superior intellects.”
Ha ha, thats a good one. You should go on the stage.
These one way helicopter rides…
Are there going to be lions on board?
@BiND
I think there’s three things. Education, intelligence & something could be called “smarts”. The first two can academically measured. The third one, life tends to do the measuring. And that can be non-optional.
You can probably get through on education alone, in today’s world. A lot of people seem to. But that’s how the system’s rigged isn’t it? Often by the people with education alone. Intelligence? Like you say, it is rather self-referencing again. If you take the intelligent mouse out of the maze, how does it perform in the wild? Eat or starve? Can’t say I’m particularly impressed by either of the first two. They’re menials. If you’re smart you can hire their services by the hour.
@Boganboy, even Peter Dutton is only baby stepping his way into supporting nuclear power stations in Australia. SMRs, blah blah. Just get the South Koreans to build a few established design, virtually off the shelf, standard nukes like they’ve just done in UAE (think that’s right). No, too easy. We deserve a few blackouts.
BiND
Chinese had compasses that pointed south, how did they do that.
Easy. One just paints the other end of the needle.
https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-profiles/countries-t-z/united-arab-emirates.aspx
Yep. UAE it is, Ltw.
“I think there’s three things. Education, intelligence & something could be called “smarts”. The first two can academically measured. The third one, life tends to do the measuring.”
I like to think that intelligence involves 2 factors – intellect, which is the ability to manipulate ideas and concepts, and skill, which is the ability to manipulate the natural environment. In order to be a truly intelligent person you need both. One without the other is an unbalanced personality. The discipline of dealing with the natural world provides a degree of reining in of the intellect – its why a bricklayer can see that the mad ideas of an intellectual are idiocy. His experience of the natural world tells him it won’t work, and he’s right.
There is a role in society for both the purely practical and the purely intellectual. The trouble Western society has today is that its ruling class is derived entirely from the purely intellectual, and they have decreed that they are ‘the clever ones’, by self referential means – I pass exams designed by people like me, so I’m clever. When in reality a purely intellectual person is no more clever than a purely practical one. They are equally unbalanced, and unsuited for high office.
In my highly advanced country we have a much better way of making sure that government projects happen right away if not sooner. We give our pols a financial stake in the project! For example an introductory commission, fifty-one per cent shareholding, shopping trips to Dubai, Mercs and Bee Ems, kids’ school fees… Vlad is a great teacher.
BiS
I think there’s three things. Education, intelligence & something could be called “smarts”.
I’ve always referred to it as “savvy”. Maybe that’s slightly different? And yes, less necessarily innate, and in practice perhaps more prevalent in working class (rather than middle) through necessity: more hard knocks/experience. Pub’s a great microcosm for observing all that.
Musing (separately) over the B ark. The test could have been quite simple, it wasn’t just the occupation necessarily, it could have been more “were they persuaded to board it”. At which point I’m reminded of more recent events.
Talking about boarding things, there’s three teams of guys given the task of getting to the other side of a pond & a pile of materials to help them. The educated guys, the high IQ guys & the smart-arses. The educated guys build a perfect replica of a Polynesian raft & prepare to pole across, the high IQ guys have used inner-tubes & are ready to paddle across. So far none of the smart-arses have turned up. So the first two teams set off poleing & paddling & at that point just one smart-arse arrives at the side of the pond. “Where have you been? We’re already half way across” shouts a member of the educated team. “It’s all right” hollas back the smart-arse. “We knew it wouldn’t take all of us. They’re down the pub & I drew the short straw” And proceeds to stroll around the pond.
You left out education Jim. Now take the illustrious Handycock. He’s obviously educated. He went to Oxford. He must be one of those superior intellects John tells us about. He’s about as smart as a brick.
Which is your problem. Your country is governed & managed by the educated. It’s only the odd smart-arse still surviving ensures you get to eat.
Off topic but anyone else enjoying the meltdown of the left over the songs ‘Try that in a small town’ and ‘Rich men north of Richmond’?
Both of which I put in the category of ‘songs’ but which are apparently rallying calls for inter-racial wars and the creation of a fascist state.
I suppose they have a point with the second song though as everyone knows Hitler’s rise to power started when he banged out a few tunes standing on a street corner whilst strumming a ukulele.
“pub, crossing pond, etc”
Reminds me of a Three Peaks weekend. 2 cars arrive Wastwater from Nevis around 8pm. First car (incl me) calculate that we’ll easily be up and down by 11 just as the light’s finally going, and we’ve got head torches in any case. The other car is nowhere to be seen. They’ve calculated (as they’ve all got perfectly good torches) that, far more importantly, the pub’ll be shut by 11. We catch them chirpily setting off as we’re strolling back into the car park…
“And proceeds to stroll around the pond.”
I’m sure I’ve seen one of those Great Egg Race/Survivor/Whatever programmes where one competitor did exactly that. Pile of building material next to side of lake, food on other side of lake, people who built raft surprised to find other chap already there having walked around lake. Walker completely bemused others hadn’t done same.
Don’t bother with North Sea helicopters, Cherny. We have sea lions in zoos.
Off topic but anyone else enjoying the meltdown of the left over the songs ‘Try that in a small town’ and ‘Rich men north of Richmond’?
One of the regulars in my English pal’s bar is a Californian in her sixties. Sort of superannuated Valley Girl with advanced chronic TDS. We’ve been running the pair of them back to back through the sound system whenever she comes in.
I do have a country track from the 80s might also get in amongst her by a performer calls himself Johnny Rebel “. Chorus line runs: “America for whites, Africa for blacks…etc..etc… Ship them n*****s back” Harsh true. But if you compare it to the lyrics on some rap tracks that have charted without protest, not that harsh. Maybe we’ll spin it one weekend.
Similarly off-topic, more clown shite:
Calling a trans woman a ‘w—-r’ is discriminatory because the insult is commonly used in reference to men, an employment tribunal has suggested.
The swear word is not a gender-neutral term and so using it against someone who has transitioned would constitute a breach of equality laws, a panel concluded.
To insult a trans woman without being discriminatory, female specific slurs should be used instead, the tribunal suggested.
…
She lost her case after the panel decided the “w—-r” incident had not actually occurred.
In addition, the bus company had argued that the swear word could be used against both men and women.
However, the panel ruled that if it had been used against her it would have been discrimination.
Saw that, wondered about other gendered terms. Can we call a tranny a cunt now? Does it depend whether he/she/it has or had one?
“However, the panel ruled that if it had been used against her it would have been discrimination.”
Apart from the obvious twattery, they display their activist stupidity by passing up a fine opportunity to not make a ruling. The relevant and deciding factor only should be the rule for rulings. Otherwise, shut the fuck up.
BiW
If asking for preferred pronouns, perhaps one should be uber-sensitive and also ask for preferred insults, for example, dick head or cunt?
@PF oh that’s good, mebbe HR will force us all to put preferred pejoratives on our email sigs, as the good allys (sic) we are