By Jo Nova
Nigel Farage’s Reform UK is transforming British politics
The Tories have already dropped Net Zero policies, but now the effects are spreading to Labour and the Greens. Australian spineless political parties should note that voters reward parties who lead the way in dumping Net Zero and immigration.
Just the fear of what might happen at the Council Elections meant Tony Blair, the former Labour PM, dropped the bombshell that Net Zero was unworkable, and that people were being silenced because they were terrified of being called Climate Deniers. A wave of skepticism was sweeping across Europe and Blair wanted to jump in ahead to steer the rebellion somewhat and promote his own plans.
Reform stormed the English council elections in a seismic way — winning 677 seats, twice as many as the Conservatives, and more than sixfold more than Labour.
Now even the Guardian are writing headlines asking if the Labour party will abandon Net Zero? In the end the article is another advert for Net Zero (aren’t they all) but it’s obvious the Guardian editors are worried that Labour might be tossing the idea around.
Two weeks ago this would have been unthinkable.
The win for Farage has rattled the cages so much that even some Greens are saying that Net Zero is hurting the poor (only thirty years too late). The Deputy Leader of the Green Party in England and Wales (which is not the same as The UK Greens) is running for the Party leadership on a whole new thing called “Eco-populism”.
The eco-populist against net-zero
Megan Kenyon, New Statesman
Zack Polanski is looking to lead the Green Party, and to challenge Labour’s climate policy from the left.
One of Reform’s primary battlegrounds with the government is over climate policy, as Farage wields net zero as a culture war sledgehammer. Polanski similarly hopes to put the pressure on Labour over this issue – but from the left. “I’m really angry about net zero,” he told me, “I’m angry that the government are expecting some of the poorest in this country to step up to net zero, expecting people to install heat pumps or expecting people to get a train rather than a plane, even though a plane is a much cheaper option”. Taken at face value, these words could well have been spoken by a Reform candidate or councillor – almost as though it is out of Farage’s own playbook. “While I may even agree with Nigel Farage’s diagnosis of the problems, it’s very clear that he doesn’t really intend to do anything about those things,” Polanski said.
His solution (of course) is to tax “businesses” — (because they never sell to the poor, and wouldn’t pass on those taxes…. right?)
Polanski believes the government should target UK businesses and the wealthy to shoulder the cost of the green transition via a wealth tax.
Voters flock to parties who stand up for them against the namecallers. (And it’s a shame the Nationals didn’t choose Matt Canavan to lead them!)
Nothing puts politics more in turmoil than a healthy dose of common sense and fiscal reality.
When the attacked put their heads in the sand, only their most consequential asset is showing,
as they clearly value their seat more than any sort of public trust.
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When fiscal realities start hitting an economy like a ton of bricks, common sense can finally start to drown out the shouting of paid advocates. And with 2023 being the first year that climate finance exceeded $1 trillion (US) there is a tremendous amount of money spent on shouting.
The UK and Germany are likely feeling more pain than most countries due to some of the highest energy prices in Europe. It’s no surprise that the Reform party in the UK and AFD rapidly gaining support, although there is a move afoot to ban AFD just as it gained so many seats in the last election.
The $ trillion dollar figure has been pumped up by a relentless 3-decade fear campaign but few ask about what been achieved for all the money thrown at CO2 reduction. CO2 emissions continue to increase, they are just emitted in Asia rather than the US and the EU. There really needs to be an accounting for this.
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The last Federal election in Australia clearly demonstrated that politicians promoted policies pitched to their election win chances, when ideally they should have presented policies that voters wanted. Shame, that is grubby. Geoff S.
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Trump’s election is giving a lot of the rest of the world including the billionaire class of Bezos, Musk, Ellison and many others the guts to chuck the Woke, Trans and phony man made climate change nonsense overboard. Citizens and politicians see this and figure out the way the wind is blowing.
What hasn’t changed is the purposeful Soros/WEF policy of importing millions of sub 80 IQ illegal aliens in order for the Left, who are not having children, enough votes to keep in power. Funny thing is the Latino’s of 2 or more generations past in the US are now the biggest ethnic group opposed to this invasion. Well, it is their jobs being stolen.
The last good sign is the school choice legislation in half our states what with Texas and Indiana recently joining this mass state by state movement. Money now goes to parents who are free to spend it on private and/or religious schools as well as homeschooling. This breaks the totally Marxist Government School monopoly. In order of favoring this school choice policy would you be surprised to know who favors this in Texas: Latino’s – 76%; African American’s – 84% and Whites – 66%.
As an aside, there is Germany the home of Karl Marx and the Nazis with their Schulpflicht where homeschooling is forbidden. No wonder they elect such losers.
We escaped hell, by not having Kamala Harris elected. Sorry about Canada and Australia. Maybe some day they will be better. Here’s hoping
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Good news about home and private schooling in the US.
The Left hate home schooling and private schools because they see the purpose of state sponsored “education” as indoctrination into Leftist ideology rather than real education.
At the moment home schooling and private schools are still legal in Australia but how long that will last is unclear.
Private schools are under increasing pressure to teach aspects of Leftist ideology such as “pick your own gender” and other parts of rainbow and climate change ideology.
A friend’s child in a private religious school in Victoriastan, Australia was subject to being taught both gender and climate nonsense by external state educators that were required by the Government to come to the school to indoctrinate children.
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Makes one wonder whether Albo called the election earlier than anticipated because he, or his masters, could see the writing on the wall.
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He called the election at the last moment for, by law, it was due. He won, worse luck, because he stuck to a very tight script, was positive and exuded confidence. The Liberals reminded me of the porridge at boarding school; never knew what was in it, it was stodgy and bland.
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He stuck to a tight script, was positive and exuded confidence.
And told lie after lie!
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Like many or most Leftists he was and is a very proficient liar.
“Whatever it takes” as the Left say.
And the Sheeple lack the critical thinking skills to discern the lies until it’s too late. That’s because the Left started dumbing-down the education system decades ago plus the support of the Left by the Lamestream Media who are overwhelmingly of the Left. Especially the $1 billion+++ per year taxpayer-funded ABC, a 24/7 far Left propaganda machine.
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The libs got hammered because they stood for NOTHING.Every time they opened their mouths,Leibor/greens/teals jumped down their throats and the Libs ran away and hid.Spineless jelly fish….
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Canavan’s time will come. He has fired a warning shot across the bows of the Nationals and, by extension, the Liberals. I would be surprised if the winner of the leadership election today doesn’t get on board the nuclear wagon and also drop Net Zero. If they don’t their time at the top will be very limited. The biggest problem for the Liberals are the wets at head office who don’t seem to have a clue as to how the majority of Australians want conservative and, dare i say it, Trump like policies. Most people only want to be able to rear their kids and have a good standard of living rather than saving the world from a non existent problem.
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Canavan accepts that emissions contribute to increased heatwaves and other contentious statements. Granted that he is better than most, but after listening and seeing Canavan talk I am not really convinced. He is a more assertive than Littleproud, but that is about it.
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I posted this on the Australian blog yesterday.
“Given that more than 60% of the world’s population is subject to governments with no commitment to net zero (USA, Russia, China, India and Indonesia), and given that the Reform party, together with the Tories, representing about 50% of the vote in the UK, are similarly inclined, and thus presenting a major break in the net zero wall built on the aspirations of the countries of Western Europe, one could draw the conclusion that net zero is at least “dead”, if not “dead and buried”. It’s only a matter of time before the latter occurs. It looks increasingly like Australia’s insane commitment to net zero will shortly leave us like the proverbial “shag on a rock”. This being the case, then it presents an opportunity to the forlorn LNP to actually resurrect itself and start arguing that policies, such as cost of living, should be prioritised way ahead of net zero. This appears unlikely to happen unless it can undertake major surgery to rid itself of the cancer that is its moderate faction.”
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My calculation is 94%. The 6% are Europe (350million), Canada (40), Australia&NZ(30), Japan(120). 550 million out of 8 billion. About 6%. And half of those disagree with it all. And what does all this cash for useless short term unreliables do? Nothing. CO2 is in huge, rapid equilibrium. It’s theft based on lies. All organized by the UN since 1988. And if you bring in a Carbon Tax, you can have a career at the UN, like Helen Clarke of NZ. Julia Gillard tried, but Helen wouldn’t leave. And retired after 8 tough years of NY lifestyle at the planet’s expense. It’s a job.
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“I’m angry that the government are expecting some of the poorest in this country to step up to net zero, expecting people to install heat pumps or expecting people to get a train rather than a plane, even though a plane is a much cheaper option”.
PM John Howard introduced the illegal Renewable Energy(Electricity) Act 2001. It buries ripoffs in the price of all energy. This is enforced by the government like a tax with stiff penalties. And the money goes where the Department of Green Energy decides. You pay for coal power and as much cash again goes to windmill owners.
What this does is push up the power of electricity for everyone. But the rich can afford it. For the poorest, they get no Green tax deduction and it is a very large part of the family budget. So they suffer. And have done so for 24 years.
And if you read the Act, there are two striking omissions. The words ‘Carbon’ and ‘Tax’. It was tricky to write this Act as the world’s biggest first Carbon Tax, but the creators in Canberra did it. And it is also the big tax in the UK. And no one knows it exists. So successful in fact they went for another huge bit with ‘Net zero’ which is science nonsense.
This was copied exactly in the UK. And the commentators do not see it. It is insidious, morally wrong, illegal in fact. Secret payment to third parties, friends of the King, buried in your costs.
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“the government should target UK businesses and the wealthy to shoulder the cost of the green transition via a wealth tax.”
Now they are talking more taxes. These are legal. But cost votes. At least the poor have tax exemptions which work. But it’s the usual soak the rich Labor policy. Again nothing to do with the problem. Even the poor in Australia have solar panels, supposedly paying only half. But the installer collects the Green cash from jacked up electricity payments. So we have the perverse situation where people pay for ‘subsisidized’ electricity when in fact they are pushing up electricity prices in the first place. It’s a vicious cycle which makes the manufacturers of solar panels and windmills so much richer.
And then the public pays for all the previously unnecessary 30,000km of transmission lines, pushing up the price of everything.
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The last Federal election in Australia clearly demonstrated that politicians promoted policies pitched to their election win chances, when ideally they should have presented policies that voters wanted. Shame, that is grubby. Geoff S.
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In the latest ripoff of the Australian people, everyone, the UN has buried $42Billion in the cost of shipping anything. In any direction. What does the consumer get from that? Nothing. It’s to pay for the UN to save the planet.
And the Safeguard Mechanism is another massive hidden CO2 ripoff which was not even mentioned in the election. 5% to 35% over 7 years CO2 payments to buy worthless ‘carbon credits’ in a ‘free market’ which is obliged under law. But don’t worry, only the ‘250 biggest polluters’ will pay. Except they will pass on the 35% carbon dioxide payments, currently at 10% on everything you buy. It’s in every transport cost. Every airline fare. Even flushing the toilet. Yes, the MMBW has to pay, which is you. And the poorest need to go to the toilet too. Plus every manufacturer of chemicals, fertilizer, glass, steel, concrete, copper, zinc, soap, everything. The b*stards will be made to pay for what Rod Sims calls the ‘terrible damage to the environment’ of just flying people on holiday to Bali.
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You are very knowledgeable about this TdeF.
Apary from this blog, how can this be communicated to the voting masses?
Most politicians, even those few sensible ones in the major parties, are unaware of it because they just vote on party lines and don’t bother to read or understand what they’re voting in.
Australia could have the world’s worst and most regressive and illegal carbon tax.
And where do these billions of dollars actually go? Who pockets them?
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It’s a puzzle. C?ina.
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And all this is reasonably available public information. It’s just never mentioned by ANY politicians and certainly not by the ‘media’. Even Rod Sims, front page yesterday in the Australian praised the Safeguard Mechanism as paying the social cost of CO2 pollution. Except the public never see the money. It’s not a tax. How can such famous economists be so dumb? Or deceitful?
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Is it a puzzle?
Where the money goes matters little for an analysis of the cash flow.
The size of the money pool dominates.
Australia is years into a drop of productivity per person. Nationally, we are going broke.
When there is less money, if the same amount (the missing millions) continues to be paid, the normal people in society have less to share, so they are poorer.
Politicians are often hell bent on being remembered in history for succeeding with some pet project. See Victoria’s Premier pushing really expensive road and rail links that people cannot afford. The main “remedy” is new taxes, pseudo-taxes, imposts as well as rate increases in existing ones.
Absurd immigration rates are used to create more tax payers. If immigrants do not work productively, the theory fails and the national income problem is worse.
Too much taxation, too few productive workers and critical costs rise. Electricity prices go up, then large industries like alumina refining and aluminium smelting leave the country and unemployment rises. More bad.
What is a solution?
I worked through Australia’s golden decades of 1960s to 1980s. I did exciting, interesting work that put money into the national economy far greater than I took out, as did my colleagues and friends. We got no thanks, we mainly got “bloody dirty miner” abuse, a sign of the depressed times to come.
A solution is to learn from the golden years, to copy the best features and demolish present impediments to a return of wealth, happiness and properly educated children. There are other solutions – President Trump knows this and thankfully is acting to show the world the way. Geoff S
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And when I asked John Howard at his book launch about his Act, he ducked and said he was a ‘Climate Change agnostic’. It was utterly wrong for him to duck what he has done if he doesn’t believe it will be of any benefit. The usual response from politicians is “I’m not a scientist”.
Like the woman Supreme Court candidate in the US who when asked to define a woman replied “I’m not a biologist”.
All liars.
This has never been politics, a social priority or point of view. It is plain legislated theft. And now, finally, crooked politicians are worried about the voting ‘poor’. Who vastly outnumber the rich.
Never has there been such deceit in politics, such robbery of the poor. And as far as anyone can tell, the cash all makes its way to China. Fully supported by the agencies they control, like the UN and WHO. And the Labor parties and the Greens, card carrying communists like Adam Bandt and Tony Albanese. And former Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews who flew solo to Beijing for advice. And his ‘big build’ ran riot, using 70% Chinese steel when the legislated limit was 30% and bankrupted Victoria. Now trying to tax its way out of the hole. Land taxes. Fire taxes. You name it. To add to the universal tax on breathing.
Yes, Democratic governments alone have finally taxed the air we breathe, carbon dioxide produced by all living things. 95% of the world does not pay such illegal government taxes.
We are privileged to have such caring, clever politicians who have determined that we and we alone will save the entire world. By shutting down our societies and closing our factories and taxing everyone into oblivion to do so. Even though they are not ‘scientists’.
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“Never has there been such deceit in politics, such robbery of the poor.”
Sorry, but do you know nothing of the mediaeval history of Western Civilisation?
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Here in Australia we’ve voted for clueless left wing loonies who believe that toxic W & S are the cheapest energy although the reverse is true.
Three universities and a think tank tell us it will cost us 9 TRILLION $ and only deliver 15% S and 30% W every year. See even Wiki data.
By comparison Nuclear would cost us 0.115 T $ and provide energy for 93% of every year until 2100 and beyond.
What don’t people understand about toxic W & S and why do they want to destroy 28,000 klms of our environments forever and for a ZERO return?
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And Net Zero means what? The CO2 output we had in 2005. I do not remember 2005 as being any different to 2025. But apparently it was Climate Nirvana and the desperate hope is that we in the few democracies (outside the US and India) can save everyone else. No matter what it costs. I do hope there is enough cash left to pay out Adam Bandt’s parliamentary pension for the rest of his life. And that he can afford the electricity.
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You can have an industrial civilisation or a Palaeolithic Net Zero.
You can’t have both.
Pick one.
The Left want Palaeolithic for non-Elites.
The Thinking Community want progress and industry.
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‘And it’s a shame the Nationals didn’t choose Matt Canavan to lead them!’ Which encapsulates Australian politics. Why have a leader when you can choose mediocrity?
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Even if the Left pretend to want to have some sensible policies, they absolutely should not be trusted. EVER.
They will lie and cheat to get elected and then revert to their regressive ways.
They will do “whatever it takes” as per the title of the book by Graham Richardson describing the ruthlessness of the Left, his own people.
They need to be booted from government, permanently. They represent death, destruction, totalitarianism and regression to a far more primitive and brutal lifestyle for non-Elites.
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This shows, hearteningly, that democracy is not dead. Its point has never been “vote for me and I’ll enact these policies” but “I’d better listen to the electorate or else they’ll kick me out of the power that I enjoy wielding so much”.
In Britain there were plenty of fringe parties that detested the consensus between the Big Two (or Big Two and a Half if you include the LibDems), but some of them were genuinely far-right and all of them were disunited. It took a Cause (Brexit) and a charismatic leader (Nigel Farage) to get to where we are now with the uniparty running scared. In Germany the UniParty is edging toward banning the Alternativ Fur Deutschland from running in elections, at which point each side will call the other the heir of Adolf H. I suspect they won’t dare ban AfD out of fear of riots.
ReformUK is currently a one-man show. Farage needs to get a serious team around him in time for the next General Election, and needs to guard himself very carefully indeed from assassination.
What will it take for a united and sensible party that is well led to arise in Australia?
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It’s not just carbon. The Greens fought the mining of rare earths. So one by one the mines were closed. They are all now in China. Where they have free workers, Uighurs. And appalling conditions. And the world pays $250/kg for rare earths from China where we used to pay $8/kg. Thank you Greens for saving us.
And the filthy steel industry. Now over 50% in China. Free, free at last. We only have to tax Bluescope and Infrabuild out of existence and we can import 100% of our steel from China. We can always melt old steel but the cost of the energy locally is too high as we are saving the planet. Better to get it all from China.
Plastics too. Buy it from China. In fact the largest Plastics manufacturer just closed. Strangely Chinese owned. Now all the plastic bottles have to come from China. Odd really. 800 jobs. Forced out by the Safeguard Mechanism 35% tax, but they wanted to go. We just import from China.
And then when their is a conflict, like a question about the Wuhan Flu, China can stop buying coal, stop exporting plastics, stop buying wine and only last month, stop selling Rare Earths which they now utterly control.
Is anyone spotting a pattern, supported fully by Labor and the Greens and frankly, by Tories and the Liberal party? China First. MCGA.
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Similar.
I was in a Cathedral gift shop, in England, last week.
All nice – not even too ‘churchy’
It had – near VE Day 80 – lots of kits to build model Spitfires, and Lancaster bombers, and tanks, etc. Even a submarine IIRC.
All made in – didja guess? – China.
And a nice ‘William Morris’ printing set – with four or six blocks to personalise notepaper. Branded after the late-Victorian artist, print-maker and craftsman.
And – yup – made in China …
All this, of course, ‘Designed in the UK’.
The postcards I bought were probably also designed in the UK.
But didn’t say where they were printed. Italy, or Sri Lanka, or Slovenia, or Kenya would be among my first twenty guesses …
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As for ‘The Science’ behind Net Zero, what science? Where is it hotter in the 37 years since the UN/Al Gore/WMO/James Hansen invented rapid man made CO2 driven Global Warming. Which apparently actually started in 1800. So you need to check your dictionary definition of ‘rapid’. And why was 2005 perfect?
And the idea is that man made CO2 is going to fry us. Which is odd because in 250 years, we have not seem much of a change. Sure there are no ice markets on the Thames and the canals are not good for winter skating in Nederlands, but otherwise things seem to be better. Not as hot as in Roman times, but better.
But when you get a declared heat wave in the UK at 25C, you have to wonder what’s in the tea?
And I’ll believe this Global Warming when Australians stop flying to Indonesia/Bali(population 250 million), Vietnam (population 100 million), Thailand(population 72 million) for much deserved relaxing beach holidays. Surely the populations are suffering? And we are making it much worse by flying there? A 35% CO2 tax on aircraft is much overdue. To stop the suffering.
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And behind all this is “The Science” which says the extra CO2 is man made. Radio carbon dating says categorically that’s not true. But who understands that stuff? We believe as a nation that CO2 builds up in the air, even if every scientists tells us it is highly soluble and in rapid exchange with the ocean. So who decides on the level of CO2? Is it all accidental, random?
In actual fact we could NOT change CO2 levels if we wanted to do so. Up or down. It’s called equilibrium! Humans do not control the level of CO2 from oceans to the air and air to the oceans. Because the planet is much, much bigger than our little power stations and even at our peak, we output 1% of the CO2 a year and that is only 2% of what is in the ocean. It’s absolute fantasy that we control CO2, that CO2 controls our weather and even that there is a man made problem with the weather. Or just lies.
And if you really think we can change CO2, look at the graph of CO2 for the last 55 years. And ask yourself if there is any sign of human interference with this perfect straight line, climbing at a rocketing 0.4% per year. Which is almost a perfect straight line.
Have a look at the graph of ’emissions’
And if you want to see who is doing it. Click on MAP. Cui Bono. The Art of War.
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So Albo-Tross is going to cancel the debt of 3 million students so that 25 million Australians can cover the shortfall. Clearly Albo is not good at maths! It’s the net zero for lazy student types that failed to obtain satisfaction in education and then failed to get a job to repay their accrued debt that gets my goat.
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There was always something fishy about Net Zero. It was a scientifically adverse marketing slogan and also seemed to mainly emanate from the UK. Certainly Boris Johnson was all on board with it, which is why Scott Morrison appeared to capitulate and sign up Australia. It reminded me of Coke Zero. A jingoistic term to captivate the populace, clueless politicians and bureaucrats. Someone decided that the debate around climate change was too dry and complicated and needed sexed up. Forget the science, let’s go with emotion. At some stage I read that Net Zero was a concept dreamt up by the WEF along with other 3 letter acronyms like ESG and DEI. Anyway it’s not surprising it losing traction in the UK, just wish our LNP had had enough brains to reject it here. Matt Canavan would certainly like to now, shame he didn’t speak up more when he was in government. Maybe the Labor Party will surprise us all and drop it. They could just blame Morrison and the LNP after all.
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Too little too late from Tony Blair. It was his treasonous policy to open the borders to all comers. Years after his exit he actually admitted it was a policy to import labour voters.
There have certainly been dumber, less competent PMs but he was the worst.
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When people’s suffering reaches a certain level, they are forced to face reality and change. Unfortunately, by the time that happens it’s usually too late. If you look at our own mess down here, we now have a trillion dollars in debt and a government hell bent on making us 100% dependent on China for a form of energy that can’t sustain industry and is so expensive that the government now needs to borrow money and pay people in order to use that electricity. You couldn’t make this schist up.
Unfortunately, it’s probably even worse than we realise because you can’t get rid of the solar panels and wind turbines overnight and we simply don’t have the money or borrowing capacity to build back a new coal powered grid. To make matters even worse, the government is super charging the subsidies for residential solar and batteries to win votes, but this makes the problem far worse. All of the residential solar and battery users effectively become lost customers from the grid and at least ten years worth of grid revenue from those customers gets diverted to China. When you consider we have 3.7M home solar customers, you start to realise the problem. We’re talking about lost revenue in the order of $20-40B every year and that needs to be paid for by remaining grid users, which includes almost all of industry and business users. And, the more expensive the grid gets, the more residential people exit the grid, creating a snowball effect. And of course this is on top of the massive cost of building the extra transmission and storage that also gets passed onto the remaining grid users. This is a system that is designed to cripple business and impoverish low income people, followed by nation wide impoverishment and complete economic collapse. It’s also designed to make us a slave to China and we all know where that leads.
However, the big question is how do we fix this mess and is it even possible to fix ?. By the time of the next election we’ll have almost no coal plants left, almost no heavy industry left, the majority of residential houses effectively removed from contributing financially to the grid (but still needing the grid some of the time), more EVs that need electricity, the debt levels will have reached critical mass, and we’ll be left with the world’s most expensive and unreliable grid that requires a complete replacement at enormous cost.
Has Australia just become a lesson in “What NOT to do” ?
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