With the recent Labour and Conservative conferences concluding, very little new of substance was heard from the Conservative conference; however, from the Labour conference we had the following gems:
- Angela Rayner thinks Boris Johnson is scum (Labour conference: Angela Rayner stands by calling Boris Johnson ‘scum' – BBC News) and stands by that opinion.
- Sir Kier Starmer calls for the sitting government to simply hand over the governance of the UK to the Labour party without an election (“either get a grip or get out of the way and let us clear up this mess”). (Keir Starmer attacks ‘trivial’ Boris Johnson in conference speech | Labour conference | The Guardian)
- Labour’s delegates position is to nationalise the energy industry
Labour conference: Delegates vote to back nationalising energy industry – BBC News
Whilst many inside (and outside) the Labour party may well agree with point 1, and Ms. Rayner’s views; it is both unbecoming of those serving in public office to make such statements, and also potentially insulting to pond scum.
Whilst Ms. Rayner wasn’t afforded the opportunity of a public-school education and Oxford/Cambridge undergraduate (few of us outside of the sitting government were/are); this otherwise remarkable woman does herself a disservice with such crass comments; devaluing any legitimate argument she may have in challenging this sitting government.
Given the job that the current government is doing, I’d suggest that there are more than enough facts to throw at them before hurling petty insults. The argument is usually lost when one resorts to insults or becomes abusive – Pound the facts and not the table.
It is ironic that as a Socialist (as Ms. Reynor is claimed to be), that people currently living within existing Marxist/Socialist countries are rarely allowed (or severely punished for doing so) to make such statements against those in public office.
The arrest of Roman Protasevich and Sofia Sapega following Marxist leader and president of Belarus (Alexander Lukashenko) diverting (by force) Ryanair flight FR4978 on route to Vilnius in Lithuania (on Sunday 23 May); being one of many casing points.
Liberal democracy isn’t perfect, but at least within such democracies, defamation is often not defined as a criminal act. As such I can be free to give “reasonable” opinion against those in office with the realistic expectation that such officials will not facilitate coating my house door handle with a nerve agent, or sneaking Polonium-210 into my tea! (Reference European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) finding that Russia was responsible for the killing (their words) of Alexander Litvinenko).
For the record, I have nothing against pond scum, nor Socialist Countries; so, would hope that Russian CRU agents don’t find the cathedral in my locality as interesting as (apparently) they found the one in Salisbury. Da Comrade (да товарищ)???!!!
Point 2 is curious as I would have expected that anyone choosing to go into politics would have studied enough basic political history to know that it is rare that any sitting government simply rolls over when in office and hands the government over to their opposition.
Governments certainly do resign from office, as the Dutch government recently did over the child benefits scandal (Dutch government quits over ‘colossal stain' of tax subsidy scandal | Reuters) – however this is normally a prelude to an election (as it should be) rather than a direct transfer from one political party to another.
I wonder how Marxism/Socialism is the answer to solving these perceived Conservative’s failings (in the opinion of the Labour party), as I haven’t seen that Marxism/Socialism worked anywhere else that it has been applied. Venezuela’s once thriving economy is in ruins following 20 years of socialism.
A quick internet search of what socialism has brought to Venezuela yields “Political corruption, chronic shortages of food and medicine, closure of businesses, unemployment, deterioration of productivity, authoritarianism, human rights violations, gross economic mismanagement and high dependence on oil have also contributed to the worsening crisis.”.
Is this really the Socialist Utopia that the Labour left want to force upon us? It is certainly the reality of such given recent, and not so recent history of countries who have trod that path. We can look to other models of such in the main current socialist states –Few of these countries have people risking their lives to get into such places. Russia and China have buoyant economies; however, this seems very much at the cost of civil liberties and mass poverty within such countries.
I would side with Churchill in his view that Marxism/Socialism is a sure route to a society where all (other than the “party elite”) are equally impoverished. In any case, I would hope that any transition of government is via an election, and not simply a transfer of power to an institution no one voted for.
Of course, people did vote for Mr. Boris Johnson in the 2019 general election – and look how that worked out! I’d have the personal opinion that politics needs more people with common-life experience in living through tough time as has Ms. Rayner (minus the misguided socialism), rather than Public-School Educated, wealthy elite that tend to populate the other side of the parliament.
What we all really need is a parliament that considers the overall good of it’s electorate, rather than divisive party-political squabbles and name calling. Curiously the Labour party chose their own party conference to fight among themselves rather than to offer up credible alternatives to the sitting government’s position on Covid recovery, Brexit, climate change and homeland security.
It is not as if the sitting government is doing a stellar job; so, I’d suggest to Sir Keir Starmer that the party actually in desperate need to “get a grip” is the party that he leads! Strong government needs strong opposition – so my request to the Labour party is to drop the “Socialist Utopia” nonsense from your far left and come back to a centre left that we can all live with.
…. Which leads me onto Point 3… Nationalisation of the Energy Industry.
I would be interested to hear why ASLEF (Britain's trade union for train drivers / 21,000+ members) has never considered joining forces with the RMT’s 80,000 members and sought to buy a rail franchise to run it how they see fit.
Likewise, why has Unite, with it’s circa 1.3 million members not thought to take over a failing steel mill or any small asset within the UKCS sector? Given Labour's 2019 general election manifesto that promised to bring “energy into public ownership to end the great privatisation rip-off and save you money on your fares and bills”; I would be curious as to why the Labour party (and the Unions that underpin them) actually believe that they are in any way better and more suited to run the energy industry than… the energy industry/private sector?
The government does run the NHS, so perhaps we can use this as a yard-stick (and consider the cost to the state) to how other institutions and industries would be run under public ownership? Governments and opposition parties would be best advised to run their ideas past industry representatives and bodies such as:
- The Energy Institute (www.energyinst.org)
- Oil and Gas UK (www.oguk.org.uk)
- IChemE / IMechE (Ichem.org / Imeche.org)
I see no reason why any of the above wouldn’t or couldn’t pass a reasonably informed and considered opinion as to the impact upon the energy (or any other industry we as engineers work within) industry of being forced into Public Ownership. Wouldn’t it be great if public officials sought to inform themselves on the subject matter before they make public comment upon such? Imagine that! :-O
With regards to forcing industry under Government Control – I for one would welcome the sorts of pensions seemingly only afforded to those in public office, or similarly, the plethora of awards, MBEs, CBEs, etc. awarded to those who seemingly do little more than their job whilst in public office.
I couldn’t comment as to whether current Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer is deserving of his 2014 Knighthood? I believe that all of Sir Keir's predecessors received knighthoods for the role, and he was no different. How many engineers are “guaranteed” a knighthood for time served?
We could theorise it to the impact to a national economy of Nationalising the energy sector, however we do have a current example of where a 1st World Economic sovereign state did just that – Venezuela under Socialist leader Chavez.
Whilst not all of this is a result of the “socialist revolution”, the collapse of the Venezuelan energy sector since 1999 under this socialist ideology is also clear and is a direct result of government running industry. So why do the Marxists in the UK Labour party think that they, and their union backers would do any better with the UK sector? Was British rail any better under public ownership pre-1994?
Can anyone say privatisation has as a whole provided a worse service for the UK than it did under British rail? Unions may say yes, however (as above), rail franchises are there for them to buy should they choose to test their socialist model in the real world.
Government competence (wow, there is an Oxymoron!) aside, the other aspect of nationalising the energy sector right back to the wellhead is the current UKCS £46 billion decommissioning liability (ukcs_decomm_cost_estimate_2021_single_master.pdf (ogauthority.co.uk)).
Given the chance to hand over the assets to the government, I would expect that many of the private owners of UKCS assets may well not hesitate to take that offer. One of the major holes in the SNP case for independence (actually, there has been no credible financial case for independence, so oxymoron #2!) is how an independent Scotland would handle such a liability given Westminster would most likely be happy to give it to them in the event Scotland chooses this path.
Would be interesting to see if the SNP after all it’s bluster would or could refuse to take the keys to that particular castle? It would also be curious as to where the Westminster parliament would choose to draw the line (“border”) between what are deemed “Scottish” UKCS assets, and not.
Sadly, for the UKCS, that boat of public ownership of the energy sector has sailed. Whereas the Norwegian and Danish sectors were set up under a model of maximising the recovery and overall return over the life of field (in the best interests of the long-term for the state); once the UKCS was in the hands of private sector; they then drove peak oil at the earliest to maximise their investment rather than look all the way to maximising recovery (and value) to the end of field life. This is the luxury counties of relatively low populations and high oil reserves have over a circa 60+ million populated island which seeks to maintain a national health service, nuclear capability and council housing.
One aspect of socialism that seems not to be possible in liberal democracies is the ability to make long-term strategic decisions given governments with absolute power don’t need to be populist and re-elected after a short term.
Even though we face impending irreversible climate change, we in democratic Europe still can’t have a rational, sensible and informed debate as to how or even “if” Nuclear power plays a part in that future. As someone who has no specialist knowledge or experience in the Nuclear Industry, I don’t have an opinion other than I’d at least like to hear a debate about such without people shouting abuse and insults.
