Some facts our wonderful government paid £170m covid grants to Cornish holiday let businesses; Cost of 2nd home owners avoiding council tax to CornwallCC £17 million; There are 12776 second homes and more than 11000 holiday lets – and 21817 people on councils housing register. In the past year house prices in Cornwall were 7% up on the year before and 23% up on 2019 when they averaged at £270,554, now £330097.
SHIT
Raw sewage pumped into rivers 372533 times last year. Our wonderful government and the privatised companies which have dished out millions of £ to shareholders, have agreed to cut these discharges by 40% by 2040. Honestly this is not a typo, and the government say it is a step change! So in 18 years time there will only be 223520 discharges of raw shit into our rivers. What a fragrant government we have!
WATER
Water companies dumped sewage into our rivers and coast 372,533 times last year! How shitty is that?
ENERGY
National Grid Live Status shows that we are still very dependant on fossil fuels, especially at this time of year. We have become reliant on wind for renewable energy and not done enough to develop solar. As ever I am the worst sort of commentator as I have limited knowledge which may be worse than no knowledge!
Cutting demand is an obvious partial solution. Solar panels on all possible sites of offices and educational establishments that operate mainly in daylight is a no brainer. Governments and investors of all persuasions seem fixated on the large scale projects. Would lots of small scale projects undermine the privatised National Grid? I am surprised at the lack of HEP – water powered this country for centuries. Re-instated mill ponds would surely bring environmental benefits.
The stats show the continuing importance of nuclear power. I am cautious with Windscale, Three Mile Island, Fukushima, Chernobyl all in my memory, and we do not seem to have solved the nuclear waste problem. However, needs must. At this time of year we need an alternative that does not exacerbate climate change. The £13 billion pound cost of increasing the nuclear component from 16% to 25% it to passed onto the public. I am not sure the free market economy is working too well in this market. We have seen the privatised energy companies make huge profits (and the huge fossil fuel companies), whilst little has been done to help the poorest in our society. (I was fortunate to have been born with the benefits derived from a socialist government. The gap between rich and poor was still too large, but has grown exponentially recently). The current capitalist model is broke.
Apparently Tory MP’s with rural constituencies are opposed to relaxing planning rules for onshore wind farms. I suspect that 90% of people living in villages do not give a shit, it is the wealthy landowners they are talking about. I am sure the Daily Mail or Telegraph can run a spurious story linking wind turbines to cancer!
READY OR NOT?
We have the luxury of the warmest March for a century. What plans do the government have in place for a heat wave this summer? Not just a tabloid dream with bikini’s but a Western North America 2021 event. Temperatures in the 40C range? The EU has made plans – I have not heard of any here?
Is it likely? I would guess a 1 in 3 chances enough for the government to put plans in place – rather than plead ‘unprecedented’, unpredictable’ before paying out millions to mates for water sprays!
GLOBAL WARMING
FOOTBALL
My predictions for going down are Norwich, Watford and Brentford. Although Everton might be rather nervous. Burnley have the grit about them, but are certainly at risk. Top 4 seem sort of sorted – ManC, Liverpool for title then Arsenal and Chelsea. Spurs or WHU could make a late challenge for Champions League place but I think ManU have something missing!
Of the middle table clubs – who knows? Who wants to travel to Eastern Europe for the Europa League in August? Wolves, Aston Villa, Leics, S’hpton, CPalace seem safe enough and just playing for fun? Brighton and the bar stripes should be ok.
Championship – Fulham still looking a safe bet – but my selection of Bournemouth is still ok! 3rd place subject to play offs is still open to the next 7 or 8.
Div1 – Wigan, MK Dons and Plymouth seem on fire at the moment with Rotherham in the lead. Sunderland do not have the quality but with a play off place and their crowd who knows.
Div2 – What is happening at FGR? Bristol Rovers and Newport on the charge.
ANTARCTICA
Record temperatures recorded. Time to stop the chat – time for radical action.
P&O
DP World made $453 million profit last year. It has just sacked 800 employees by zoom and has coach loads of foreign crew waiting to replace them. Security guards are also poised to take occupying staff off the boats by force if necessary.
Easy answer – nationalise the company with no compensation. They say they are making a loss anyway. No one should treat its workers like this. We are living in the 21st century not the 18th (Sleaze-Dogg please note). BREXIT strikes again.