Jog off Jeremy

[ablueclaret]

Jeremy trapped again just like his running mate McDonnell, by his own sound bites.
Time to get the Jog off Jeremy movement going in the Labour Party ready for that fearful moment when Jeremy decides he is a Demi-God and above the will of the electorate, although he wasn't when it came to Brexit.
The lefts agenda has well and truly been outed.

[Sidney1st]

He's doing a splendid job of trying to keep the Tories in power.

[dpinsussex]

Thats why he is jogging. Trying to get the labour party moving

[evensteadiereddie]

I wouldn't worry about it too much, ablue.

[chorleyhere]

More Corbyn bashing, meanwhile let's look at the "new" Tory energy capping policy so derided by David Cameron ..... nothing to criticise there at all ?1?!?

Robotic May "strong and stable" but not enough to go on a public face to face debate with the other party leaders ......"running frit" too scared of people examining her past support for policies under Cameron and her poor record over migration/immigration figures but always trustworthy don't think so TM you lied "I won't call an early election".

[COYC73]

Been a Labour voter all my life....but there is absolutely no way I can vote for this Incompetent idiot to lead Brexit negotiations....!!!! I really don't think he'll leave after he loses the General Election on 8th June either....If he does stay on and wins another leadership challenge that would surely follow....I think it might be time for what is left of the 172MPs that voted no confidence in him to leave and set up a new centre left party.

[AndrewJB]

http://anotherangryvoice.blogspot.co.uk/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

It's a choice between real politics, and plastic politics.

[HelloHiGoodbye]

"Trapped by his own soundbites" What? May's said nothing else for the past fortnight other than "strong and stable, strong and stable, strong and stable, strong and stable, strong and stable..."

[Guich]

I think you'll find May hasn't said 'Strong and Stable' for a few days now. But it's well and truly embedded in your mind. Try to get it out. I bet you can't.

What you will see now is more mention of 'strength' and 'stability' but rarely together.

[HelloHiGoodbye]

I think you'll find May hasn't said 'Strong and Stable' for a few days now. But it's well and truly embedded in your mind. Try to get it out. I bet you can't.

What you will see now is more mention of 'strength' and 'stability' but rarely together.

She said it last night on The One Show. Not that I'm really bothered, it's just there might be a lot of things to say about Corbyn but getting stuck in soundbites is pretty rich.

[Lancasterclaret]

This is worth a watch from the Guardian. Guy is in Lancaster, Wennington (just up from me), Preston and Haslingden

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... ough-video" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[AndrewJB]

https://www.facebook.com/theguardian/vi ... nref=story" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Here's one the Guardian hid away.

[AndrewJB]

https://www.thecanary.co/2017/05/10/bbc ... ap-images/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Bacchus]

https://www.thecanary.co/2017/05/10/bbc ... ap-images/

Come on, Andrew. You're normally worth reading - certainly better than linking to The Canary. It's pretty much compulsory to wear a tinfoil hat when reading their articles.

[hampsteadclaret]

The Tories 'capping energy prices'...yeah brilliant..it certainly won't cost the Government anything to put that one in place, that's a pretty inexpensive policy.

The casual only semi-interested reader might like to to think back 20/30 years on this one, and remember which Government[s] PRIVATISED all these massive natural monopolies despite plenty of critics/economists [me included] telling them that this would lead to an abuse of market power, price-fixing, profiteering and general pyss taking of the captive energy consumer, in a monopolistic/oligopolistic market place.

Looks like Teresa May just worked that one out...or was it just electioneering?

[kentonclaret]

Jog Off


Surely this Tory Leader is more likely to cry Tally Ho!

[AndrewJB]

Bacchus - I feel like I've been caught being lazy.

[ablueclaret]

Not to acknowledge that defeat is the end of the line is the worst thing he has done, it makes him out to be more important than the Party. He now reveres himself.

[KateR]

"Trapped by his own soundbites" What? May's said nothing else for the past fortnight other than "strong and stable, strong and stable, strong and stable, strong and stable, strong and stable..."

and is this a bad thing? sounds good to me and how I would like the country to be as a general statement

[Paul Waine]

The Tories 'capping energy prices'...yeah brilliant..it certainly won't cost the Government anything to put that one in place, that's a pretty inexpensive policy.

The casual only semi-interested reader might like to to think back 20/30 years on this one, and remember which Government[s] PRIVATISED all these massive natural monopolies despite plenty of critics/economists [me included] telling them that this would lead to an abuse of market power, price-fixing, profiteering and general pyss taking of the captive energy consumer, in a monopolistic/oligopolistic market place.

Looks like Teresa May just worked that one out...or was it just electioneering?

Hi Hampstead, I've worked in the UK energy sector for the past 20 or so years - of course, all post-privatisation. Privatisation was absolutely the right thing to do - consumer gas and electricity prices were higher before privatisation and there was no incentive for the state owned monopolies to improve the situation. They would be a lot higher now if they had remained in state ownership.

However, there are a number of complexities in the energy markets, both at the wholesale level and at the consumer end. Everything else that the consumer buys you buy a fixed volume for the price shown at the time. If we are shopping we can go to Tesco one week, Asda the next and add to our purchases from Aldi, Lidl or Waitrose and M&S - whatever your preference at the time. When we sign up to an electricity and gas supplier we don't fix the volume, we don't say "please deliver x amount on sunday and y amount on the other days of the week" - we just turn our heating and lighting on (or off) when it is cold (or warm) and when it is nightfall or day time. To make it more interesting, we don't (at present) have automatic meter reading, so the supplier doesn't know whether we are at home with the elec and gas turned up high, or away on a "winter sunshine" break and we've turned the lights off and the heating down.

Meanwhile, in the wholesale market there are a whole series of rules: electricity generators and electricity suppliers (to consumers) have to be in balance for every half-hour of every day. The big reason for this is physics - if there is too much generation the wires will "burn out" if there is too little generation our lights won't work (or we have a brown out). Similarly, gas heating can be dangerous if pilot lights fail through lack of gas supply.
To make it more interesting, we now have unpredictable/uncontrollable generation from wind turbines and pv solar - and this intermittency has also to be kept in balance.

The government has decided to "hide" all the green energy subsidise in the electricity price that the consumers pay, plus a few other "social obligation" costs that have been placed on the electricity and gas suppliers. Gordon Brown/Ed Balls were the first to introduce this "trick." It's a very regressive stealth tax - the low income consumer can't afford to have solar pv installed on his rooftop - but he pays for the pv subsidies that his wealthier neighbours have install.

More later....

[hampsteadclaret]

19..The sadness though is that parroting 'strong and stable' for four weeks and not much else, will be enough for the gullible and easily led lame-thinkers in many 'comfortable' parts of the country, to vote for TM.

I look forward to the launch of the manifesto's and see who is making cast iron promises, and who will use weasel words and semi-truths to get them through the next four weeks.

[KateR]

love "weasel words" It is such a good statement and can be applied to so many situations, it should be used so much more, I will do my best to slip it in to conversations!

[ablueclaret]

The trouble is every time a shadow cabinet member is up for interview they just don't have the most simple grasp of economics. It's all well and good having worthy policies but you do have to have thought them through. I guess the left have just decided to go for broke by promising the earth.

[chorleyhere]

Osborne's grasp of economics was to state that the deficit would be reduced to zero by 2020 - not much of a grasp was it?

[hampsteadclaret]

Paul Waine..20..thank you Paul for the long essay in response to what I had typed earlier.

However.. you completely failed to deal with the substantive point that I was making in post 15..this point -

'The casual only semi-interested reader might like to to think back 20/30 years on this one, and remember which Government[s] PRIVATISED all these massive natural monopolies despite plenty of critics/economists [me included] telling them that this would lead to an abuse of market power, price-fixing, profiteering and general pyss taking of the captive energy consumer, in a monopolistic/oligopolistic market place..'


Any views on the oligopolistic price rigged energy market that I have referred to..?

- that is price fixing agreements, completely illegal, where the customer routinely gets ripped off, and they all make fat exploitative profits.

A competitive market my ar**...if it was truly competitive, one of them would go bust now and again.. [like Woolworths or BHS..?]



**An Oligopoly is a market situation usually defined as 'competition between the few' - so few in fact [say 6-8 firms] that they can agree to all fix their prices way above costs, and make fat profits for their shareholders. It is completely illegal, but hard to prove. They have been doing it for years.
Theresa May is going to sort them out is she...what a joke..

[Paul Waine]

Paul Waine..20..thank you Paul for the long essay in response to what I had typed earlier.

However.. you completely failed to deal with the substantive point that I was making in post 15..this point -

'The casual only semi-interested reader might like to to think back 20/30 years on this one, and remember which Government[s] PRIVATISED all these massive natural monopolies despite plenty of critics/economists [me included] telling them that this would lead to an abuse of market power, price-fixing, profiteering and general pyss taking of the captive energy consumer, in a monopolistic/oligopolistic market place..'

Any views on the oligopolistic price rigged energy market that I have referred to..?

- that is price fixing agreements, completely illegal, where the customer routinely gets ripped off, and they all make fat exploitative profits.

A competitive market my ar**...if it was truly competitive, one of them would go bust now and again.. [like Woolworths or BHS..?]

**An Oligopoly is a market situation usually defined as 'competition between the few' - so few in fact [say 6-8 firms] that they can agree to all fix their prices way above costs, and make fat profits for their shareholders. It is completely illegal, but hard to prove. They have been doing it for years.
Theresa May is going to sort them out is she...what a joke..

Hi Hampstead, I guess you know that Ofgem has examined the gas and elec markets on several occasions and the CMA has also reviewed them. Neither has found that there is any price fixing. You are right that is illegal - and the authorities rightly take very strict enforcement action. I've always been a big supporter any time these actions were necessary.

So, why are residential gas and elec prices similar:
1) transmission and distribution costs are the same for all suppliers, they all pay the same to the operators of the transmission pipes/lines and the operators of the local distribution pipes/lines. These costs are regulated by Ofgem.
2) all the suppliers buy their gas and electricity in the wholesale markets, they can choose when they buy, they can hedge some of their purchases but they don't control the wholesale markets - and they don't control how much gas/elec their customers consume - which makes hedging their prices extremely difficult (as there are no fixed volumes) - and they don't control if/when their customers switch to buy from a new supplier.
3) all the major suppliers (but not small ones) also carry "social obligations" - things like insulate lofts for their customers;
4) and they are all subject to the renewable obligation - required to either sell X% of renewable electricity or buy renewable obligation certificates (ROCs) from a generator, or pay a penalty into the pool if they fall short - and this pool is then shared between those that did have the ROCs.
5) and, of course, everyone knows everyone's prices once they are published. The only thing the gas/elec supply companies can't do is agree with any other company how they will set their prices. Anyone who tried to do this would be a fool - and would deserve all they will get.

So, why do people/MPs/you think that the markets are "fixed" and customers are "ripped off?"

My thoughts: it's because the gas/elec is delivered to us at home through the same pipe/wires, it's because we don't walk into supermarket X or supermarket Y and pick it up off the shelves, it's because we don't know from hour to hour how much we are consuming (this might be possible with a smart meter - but would anyone do that).

Of course, it's interesting, when there was just British Gas and just our local elec board, Norweb or London Elec, no one seemed to worry about the state monopoly. But, do you know that we were all paying a lot more when there was just the state monopoly? Do you know that when the markets were opened to competition in the mid/late 1990s that prices fell?

Oh, and do you know that in October/November 2002 two of the largest of the UK electricity (and gas) suppliers did go bankrupt - and that there have been other bankruptcies in this sector both before and since? The government/Ofgem has a way of transferring the customers of a company that is bankrupt to another supplier - so that everyone's gas/elec will continue to flow. TXU Europe was one of the two bankruptcies in 2002. Can you identify the other one? (I know who it was, do you)?

Re oligopolies: it's always very popular for governments to claim there is an oligopoly and they must investigate to see if they need to change things. I was working in the brewing industry in 1979/80 when we experienced a monopolies review. I can remember the same when the petrol retailers were reviewed. I think the supermarket sector has also gone through the same. There are 6 dominant suppliers in gas/elec supply. The numbers in brewing/petrol retail/supermarkets aren't as many as 6. Today there are somewhere above 30 smaller gas/elec suppliers (some might only supply industrial and commercial, but a large number are residential suppliers). So, do you really think there is an oligopoly in the gas/elec markets that operates against the consumers interest?

[Steve-Harpers-perm]

Been a Labour voter all my life....but there is absolutely no way I can vote for this Incompetent idiot to lead Brexit negotiations....!!!! I really don't think he'll leave after he loses the General Election on 8th June either....If he does stay on and wins another leadership challenge that would surely follow....I think it might be time for what is left of the 172MPs that voted no confidence in him to leave and set up a new centre left party.

What has May done to suggest she's going to be so brilliant at leading negotiations?? What a sorry state of affairs this country is in when May is the viable alternative!

[Paul Waine]

What has May done to suggest she's going to be so brilliant at leading negotiations?? What a sorry state of affairs this country is in when May is the viable alternative!

Wasn't the only alternative Boris Johnson?

[thomaspaine]

Jeremy trapped again just like his running mate McDonnell, by his own sound bites.
Time to get the Jog off Jeremy movement going in the Labour Party ready for that fearful moment when Jeremy decides he is a Demi-God and above the will of the electorate, although he wasn't when it came to Brexit.
The lefts agenda has well and truly been outed.

Time you jogged off.

[AndrewJB]

Wasn't the only alternative Boris Johnson?

It illustrates the lack of depth.

[mikeS]

The Tories are always quick to pour scorn over everybody else but themselves. We've yet to see their manifesto. I'm waiting to see what it will cost for our Brexit divorce. £50 billion, £100bn or nothing as people like Johnson suggest. What taxes are the Tories going to raise to pay that bill? How many more years of austerity can we all expect as a consequence?

[DCWat]

The Tories are always quick to pour scorn over everybody else but themselves. We've yet to see their manifesto. I'm waiting to see what it will cost for our Brexit divorce. £50 billion, £100bn or nothing as people like Johnson suggest. What taxes are the Tories going to raise to pay that bill? How many more years of austerity can we all expect as a consequence?

I've not read through the Labour manifesto. What does it say is the cost of Brexit with them taking us through the process? Just by way of comparison.