The government has released the latest paper in the barrage of initiatives designed to soften up the public before the next generation of nuclear power stations is announced to a general feeling of “unpleasant but necessary”. This one suggests that the best location for a new nuclear power station is Hinkley Point in Somerset, closely followed by Sizewell in Suffolk (not far from where I grew up as the crow flies, and the subject of my school project when I was 15).
Now, I am not against nuclear power stations on principal and would swallow the argument that we have to have them if we are to reduce our carbon levels sufficiently. But may be we should all be questioning that assumption…
There is an interesting little gadget on the BBC’s website. It is an energy calculator. It lets you enter your preferences for how energy is produced and then tells you how it might all work out by the year 2020. The aim is to ensure that the UK generates enough electricity for our needs while staying within our carbon emission targets and doing so at a reasonable cost.
What intrigued me was not just that this seems to be an excellent aid to understanding competing policy requirements where the explanation of the sources indicates a good deal of thinking and research. It also occurred to me that, quite surprisingly and assuming the inputs are correct, that this is not a hard equation to balance, after all. I would be intrigued to know if others have found the same? I certainly did not need to resort to some of the scenarios the government appears to be suggesting to lead us to build more nuclear stations.
However, before I give more away, I’ll post up my choices as a comment so you can have a play first and then see if your solution looks anything like mine! If we do all disagree, then maybe it is not as straight forward as it seemed to me.
No, this is not a plea to save Red Ken Livingstone… it is another Number 10 petition that has been brought to our attention, and this one is a request to save the Red Arrows aerobatics display team. It has been alleged that they are under threat from the current budgeting process within the armed services who are so strained by current operations in Iraq and elsewhere.
The Red Arrows are a truly world-class outfit and deserve out support. They symbolise much about dedication and skill that are worthy traits and have helped to inspire generations of young aviators.
Please sign the petition.
I could not really miss out the chance to mention that one of the TRG’s board members, Chris Skidmore, has recently published a biography of Edward VI. He had a fun book launch at Daunt Books on Marylebone High Street last week.
Now, I have not read this yet, but I would love to see some comments from anyone that has and I am sure we will review this in Reformer soon. What I am sure of is the importance of history for modern politics. When Lord Hurd gave the TRG’s annual International Lecture last year, he observed that the Blair government regularly failed to recognise the lessons of history, whether it be in Iraq or general lessons of government leadership. This has become even more curious, as history will play a key role in the “Britishness” lessons the government is now proposing to introduce.
In the meantime, there is a link on the right to the TRG page on the Amazon website where you can buy the book and let us know if you think there are lessons for our time that we should learn.
A new book is shortly to hit the shelves, entitled, “How to Live with a Politician”. The author is Alicia Collinson, barrister, and wife of TRG VP Damien Green, MP for Ashford.
The book is available to order prior to publication from Politico’s website and contains hints and tips for how to manage the unruly politician in your life. I am told there are over 100 contributors of various types who have offered their wisdom and experience.
I haven’t seen a copy yet, although the TRG’s Director, Clare Whelan, has and she tells me it is more than a little funny! We’ll try and get hold of a copy and review it fully for Reformer, soon.
Update - 1/2/07
We have started looking at getting the TRG web store set up. Most of this will be through Amazon. As a starting point, we have put up a link to Alicia’s book in the bar on the right. If anyone is brave enough to try it and that would be great - but only if you were intending to buy the book, anyway! You may even be our first customer. ;0)
Since 1997 the Labour government has introduced an unprecedented level of new legislation. They have brought in 3,000 new criminal offences - that is nearly one for every day since their election.
This has led to an impossible burden on the rights of every person in Britain, restrictions on businesses and their ability to compete and a windfall for lawyers, who surly did not need one.
Every year Radio Four’s Today programme runs a poll. This year the aim is to find proposals for laws that should be repealed - a great idea. At the moment they are taking nominations (click here to do so yourself).
Give it a go and strike a (small) blow against Labour’s excess!
A while ago I read a book that many of you might have heard of called “Freakanomics”; indeed, I reviewed it for Reformer, the TRG’s bi-annual journal (click here if you are interested).
The joy of the book is that it explained the tricky subject of economics in a form that was easy for lay readers, such as myself, to understand. What is more, it did so by applying the science of economics to every day problems such as house prices, abortion and drug use, which means that as a reader you really want to understand why these things are as they are.
I have recently discovered the work of a UK-journalist who tries to do the same thing. His name is Tim Harford and he writes a column for the FT called the “Undercover Economist” and it makes for great reading. This week he tals about self-regulating markets based on people who go ice skating and then applies the rules to managing climate change!
As so much of politics is dependent on successful economic management I heartily recommend the column.
