[Boiler]

Don't forget though that we're being encouraged to switch away from gas to electrically-powered heat pumps for domestic heating and the demand for power there may well have to come from CCGT power stations.

[Youngian]

CCGT stands for combined cycle gas turbine.

[The Weeping Angel]

The Budget is unlikely to improve this situation.

A lot of people over on Bluesky are feeling incredibly smug about this poll.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Don't forget though that we're being encouraged to switch away from gas to electrically-powered heat pumps for domestic heating and the demand for power there may well have to come from CCGT power stations.

We're not going as fast for heat pumps as some people say we might, I wonder if this might be deliberate in terms of what the grid can cope with.

[Youngian]

A lot of people over on Bluesky are feeling incredibly smug about this poll.

Terrible takes that don't provide anything convincing as to why Labour is so unpopular. Pretty sure not being more like the Greens isn't among the main reasons.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Guardian lead story. Part 100 in a never ending series of the government can't do anything, ever.

Plans to house UK asylum seekers in barracks are costly and complicated, experts say
Exclusive: Organisations warn using the barracks in Sussex and Inverness may be more expensive than hotels

[Tubby Isaacs]

Terrible takes that don't provide anything convincing as to why Labour is so unpopular. Pretty sure not being more like the Greens isn't among the main reasons.

Someone on Bluesky pointed out that populist parties of all kinds get away with more than the others. I'd guess that Zack's wealth tax has been spent quite a few times already, even by his own implausible estimates.

Labour being more like Zack would probably be more popular. Then inflation and interest rates and borrowing costs would rise, and Zack would probably suggest price and capital controls.

[Youngian]

Zack was doing fine in an interview with Lewis Goddall until getting onto NATO and Putin's wars. What a fudging muddle, he even fell back on 'Putin hasn't threatened the UK with war.' Is he secretly Peter Hitchens?

[Tubby Isaacs]

They think the same as Zarah Sultana- that it's all a con to earn money for arms companies and keep the public scared. Which was more plausible before Russia actually invaded and then invaded more. Ellie Chowns when asked about Defence just tried to change the subject to da real issues- overseas development.

[Tubby Isaacs]

I gather Zack struggled a bit when asked about borrowing costs a while ago, something about how we had our own currency so didn't have to worry about it too much.

Zack Peron.

[Tubby Isaacs]

https://www.theguardian.com/society/202 ... l-shake-up

Bankrupt Woking to get £500m bailout in Surrey council shake-up
‘Unprecedented’ move helps to smooth over creation of two new ‘mega council’ unitary authorities

Two unitaries for Surrey. Replaces the County Council and (count em) 11 district-borough councils. Sounds like a fair bit of the bail out of Woking will come from the rest of Surrey, which seeing it's about the richest area in the country, sounds sort of progressive. I'm sure the Left will be along in a minute to hail this tax on rich people, right?

I hope they've done the legals. The rest of Surrey probably won't like it.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Once you've got decent sized authorities, doing lots of stuff, you might get a higher quality of councillor (unless Reform win) and have a higher standard of senior officers (unless Reform win and they all leave). Against that background, the Treasury might get more confident about devolving. If you devolve to bodies who can't handle it, they overspend, as some mayoralties did on building basic railway stations (established Scotrail didn't overspend).

This is all a slow burner though, inevitably. Authorities won't be up and running till April 2027. The Government has 18 more months of people criticizing it for doing nothing.

[Youngian]

I gather Zack struggled a bit when asked about borrowing costs a while ago, something about how we had our own currency so didn't have to worry about it too much.

Zack Peron.

He's been interviewing Richard Murphy. Among ideas discussed is not paying interest on bonds until the markets learn that the government is in charge and should decide on what rates it pays them. Such a good idea Richard Tice agrees with him. Until they see sense the BoE can be ordered to print loads of more money to pay the bills.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Is it that, or is that the Bank don't pay interest on deposits that commercial banks have with them? That's a Dicky Tice policy. Andrew Bailey pointed out that the commercial banks get money from depositors, who want interest paid to them. The upshot of that would be a lot less interest being paid, that'll be popular.

Has Zack done "People's QE" yet?

[Tubby Isaacs]

From there, we turned to power. Zach asked whether governments really had to “worry about the bond markets.” I said no. Gilts are simply safe deposit accounts for large institutions—mainly the Bank of England itself, pension funds, insurers, and foreign central banks. They need those deposits more than the government needs them. The UK, with its own currency, can always pay its debts. If yields rise, the government can issue different maturities—or, if necessary, borrow directly from the Bank of England. The story that “the markets” control democratic governments is a myth cultivated by those who profit from it.

I think you may have been right.

This is incredible. Are there perhaps any other safe assets, anywhere in the world, that these investors might choose to buy instead?

Great idea of issuing different maturities too. I'm sure Rachel Reeves and the Debt Management Office have never thought about that.

That Zack didn't laugh his socks off at this isn't encouraging. But he'll have to learn later. Or perhaps he won't, populists get away with "bold thinking" when Starmer and Ed Davey get buried under questions about how they'd pay for it.

[mattomac]

Polls are really all over the place, even more than I expected. Ironically a week ago Yougov had the smallest gap between Reform and Lab in months.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Economist wades in with sane advice. Lots of BTL is as pathetic as you'd expect. "Austerity" gets a runout, despite being completely untrue. The problem with the economy is that Starmer "purged people with ideas". It's not clear what these might be, but perhaps they include "Just rejoin FFS" and "Just tax the rich FFS". And Starmer "at The Hague" features.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Polls are really all over the place, even more than I expected. Ironically a week ago Yougov had the smallest gap between Reform and Lab in months.

Would be funny if the Greens went down 3 in the next poll and Labour up 3. But I'm not optimistic, especially with the Budget.

[kreuzberger]

... But I'm not optimistic, especially with the Budget.

There is a corpus which simply doesn't want a government without thinking about what removing the taxation / contribution bit might actually mean. The halfwit yanks are at about Stage III of this simple-minded unsense and the walls are beginning to crumble.

[Tubby Isaacs]

They were in evidence on the Telegraph video about the Mansion Tax. Just stop the small boats.