At 7am today gas was providing just over half of UK electricity, with wind and solar a combined 7.1%. If we want variable renewables we have to have gas (or coal) backup (more nuclear is essential but it is best used for baseload rather than load following). And of course there is gas heating as well. North Sea gas reserves are proving more resilient than we thought but we are still importing about half of our gas requirements, including some LNG fracked in the US. So, if UK fracking is viable (it is a big if) the question is, is it better for the environment, balance of payments, employment etc. to source as much of that gas locally as possible or to import it sometimes over very long distances (with all the energy implications of liquidation, shipping etc.)?
Incidentally geothermal energy uses pretty much the same technology as fracking and has been associated with much bigger tremors e.g. in Iceland. But it is Renewable so a Good Thing.
Every government gets opposition. If it doesn't come from outside the respective Party in charge it comes from within. Strong and credible opposition among other benefits helps to focus the minds of malcontents.
Maybe a better analogy is with local authorities. Almost all local authorities are artificial constructs to varying degrees (often a much greater degree than is the case with the ancient nation of Wales) - in my area the London Boroughs have only existed since 1965; Cumbria is a relatively recent invention; Bedfordshire, Dorset, Berkshire, the West Riding and the historic counties of Scotland and Wales no longer exist (as units of government); Swindon is not in Wiltshire, nor is Plymouth in Devon, Derby in Derbyshire, Leicester in Leicestershire, Nottingham in Nottinghamshire, York in Yorkshire, Darlington in Durham or Brighton & Hove in Sussex; one can even remember aberrations like Avon and Humberside. All these places have (or had) geographical areas which vote Conservative and areas which vote Labour (except for those which have areas which vote LibDem, or Green, or SNP etc.). Are we to encourage all Wards where the local vote differs from that across the Council area to make a bid for independence? Indeed, should the Wards be split up to account for even more local differences?
The point I am making is that if one expects London or Scotland, say, to accept the Brexit vote (as I think we should), one should expect Conservatives in any area that elects Labour to accept that vote too. Almost every local authority, constituency, even Council Ward has areas that consistently vote Labour and others that consistently vote Conservative - my Ward certainly does. The article seems to argue that the Conservative-voting parts of a particular geographical unit of government should not have to accept it if over the unit as a whole Labour wins - that logic would seem to entail that the Labour-voting areas of Wandsworth Borough, say, should not have to put up with a Conservative Council (which didn't even win as many votes as Labour in 2018) and so on. Or that Remain-voting areas should have to accept Leave. I am not convinced this would make for better government.
I don't think Londoners did vote for Brexit. But I do appreciate your Occam-inspired approach - just let Conservative high command decide what people ought to have voted for and then govern as though that is what they did vote for. We could save quite a bit of money this way, not having to maintain an electoral register for example or put in place all the paraphernalia for actual elections. And electoral corruption would, in one sense, be a true thing of the past.
One of my little triumphs recently was identifying (with some very astute residents) a 1963 covenant between the Wimbledon and Putney Commons Conservators and the Metropolitan Borough of Wandsworth which stipulated that as a price for releasing some of Wimbledon Common for bus laybys the Council would provide litter bins. Wandsworth's decision to remove almost all street bins two years ago was therefore at odds with this covenant and they had to put them back.
I agree. Tooting has not voted Conservative for many years yet is caught in Conservative Wandsworth Council (as was Battersea last year). It can't be right that non-Conservative Tooting and Battersea should be prisoners of the Tory majority (on the Council at least) in Putney. For that matter, why should London not be allowed to stay in the EU rather than be prisoners of the Brexit majority outside the capital? Come to think of it none of my household voted Conservative this month (we have before) - why should we be prisoners of the parliamentary Conservative majority?
Waiting for everyone to pile into Lord Goldsmith now.
I think Zac Goldsmith has accepted a peerage and will retain his ministerial post too. I guess the only difference is that he was rejected by the voters while Baroness Morgan was not.
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