Labour Party Message Stressing Support for Green Policies After Starmer Backtracks Yet Again

This came from the party, courtesy of Stalin himself, Rachel Reeves, his undergruppenfuhrer and Ed Miliband. It came yesterday, just as news was breaking that Stalin was rowing back on his pledges to protect the environment. Well, there’s a surprise! Another left-wing policy jettisoned by Stalin! Who would have guessed! Anyway, I’m putting it up here for you lot to read. I leave it to you to decide whether it’s convincing and if you think it’ll be another set of policies Stalin’s going to throw in the bin once he gets his grotty behind elected.

‘David, the general election will be a once in a generation choice: five more years of Tory economic failure or Labour’s long-term plan to invest in Britain’s future. 

We know that when you play fast and loose with public finances, as the Tories did in the disastrous budget two years ago, then you put families’ finances at risk.

Labour will do things differently. We have a long-term plan to usher in a decade of national renewal and get Britain’s future back.

That is why our Green Prosperity Plan remains central in our mission to grow the economy and deliver clean power by 2030. It will be a central plank of our manifesto.

Our Green Prosperity Plan will create good jobs, cut your bills and make Britain’s energy secure. Funded by a windfall tax on oil and gas giants and borrowing to invest within fiscal rules, we will:

• Deliver clean power by 2030, saving households hundreds of pounds on annual household bills and provide a cheaper, zero-carbon electricity system for businesses.  
• Switch on Great British Energy, investing in clean homegrown power, creating jobs across the country and ending the energy insecurity Britain faces under the Conservatives.
• Create 500,000 jobs in Britain’s industrial heartlands, giving opportunities to plumbers, electricians, welders, and working people in every single nation and region of the country. 
• Unlock private sector investment in British industries such as electric vehicle production, ports, clean steel, hydrogen and carbon capture. 
• Insulate Britain’s homes and cut energy bills for good.

Good jobs. Lower bills. Energy security.

David, we are under no illusions about the challenges facing us. The Tories have crashed the economy and the public finances are a mess.

We remain ambitious for the future of our country. There is a global race taking place in the jobs and industries of the future, and we are determined to lead it. 

Labour will be fighting the election with a world-leading agenda on climate and energy.

Only Labour will end the decline and despair of fourteen years of the Tories. 

Only Labour will offer a plan for hope with an economy that is secure again. 

Only Labour will create more jobs, cheaper bills and investment in our country.

That is the change we offer. And that is the change that will get Britain’s future back.

Thank you,

Keir Starmer
Leader of the Labour Party

Rachel Reeves
Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer

Ed Miliband
Shadow Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero’

38 Degrees Petition for Windfall Tax on Energy Companies

BREAKING: David, Shell just announced that they made £22 BILLION in profits last year. [1] Meanwhile, millions of us are having our gas and electricity cut off, as energy bill debt hits a record high of £3 billion. [2] We can’t let energy giants like Shell, BP and Centrica keep raking in profits – while ordinary people languish in debt, caused by rising prices. [3]

Luckily, the perfect solution exists. We could cancel all £3 billion of energy debt with a real, iron-tight windfall tax on energy giant profits. It would take just 13% of Shell’s 2023 profits alone to wipe it out. [4] So far, it’s been everyday consumers like us footing the bill. It’s time that shareholders and energy giants started paying their fair share – and this year’s general election offers the perfect chance for change.

If hundreds of thousands of us pressure the political parties to commit to a proper windfall tax in their election pledges, we can force the next government to make this happen. But it’s going to take us all acting now. Rishi Sunak introduced a weak windfall tax two years ago, and Labour has previously pledged to ‘extend’ the existing plan. [5] But nothing is set in stone – so we have to act now.

David, will you sign the petition and tell our political leaders: if you want my vote, commit to a proper windfall tax on energy giants to cancel energy debt? It only takes a few seconds to sign – then you can share with your family and friends.

ADD MY NAME

I’M NOT SIGNING BECAUSE…

More than five million of us are affected by the inability to afford prepayment power top-ups. [6] And for those of us who aren’t, the past couple of years have shown that we’re all only one bad policy decision away from being in real trouble. Cost of living is top of voters’ minds – and getting the right support means we can sleep at night, without worrying about the roof over our heads, or our kids’ rumbling bellies. [7] Where we have something left over at the end of the month, to give us a break. From the little things in life, to the big, this election is a chance for change.

Forcing political leaders to do the right thing might sound like a tall order, but we’ve done it before! It was HUGE public pressure that forced Rishi Sunak to introduce a windfall tax on energy giants profits two years ago. [8] More than 92,000 of us signed the petition for a windfall tax, while countless 38 Degrees supporters shared their stories in the media, laying bare the reality of the cost of living crisis to millions. [9] Last year, 100,000 of us stood up to callous energy companies, preventing them from forcibly installing prepayment meters. [10] We won then, and we can win now!

So David, help us grab this chance for change, and tell our political leaders they can’t count on our votes unless they show they’ll use energy giant profits to support struggling families. It only takes a few seconds to sign, then you can share with your family and friends.

ADD MY NAME

I’M NOT SIGNING BECAUSE…

Thank you for everything you do,

Matt, Jonathan, Tash, Veronica and the 38 Degrees team

NOTES:
[1] BBC News: Shell reports lower profits as energy prices cool 
[2] Sky News: Millions to be cut off from gas and electricity this winter as energy bill debt continues to rise 
[3] CNBC: Shell posts $6.2 billion third-quarter profit, announces $3.5 billion share buyback 
BP: BP to buy back $8 billion of shares, returning its 2003 investment in TNK-BP to shareholders 
The Guardian: Energy bills in Great Britain rise by 5% as price cap increases 
[4] See note 1
[5] Sky News: Windfall tax: Splits between Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak over policy 
Sky News: Labour pledge to ‘extend’ windfall tax to protect families from soaring energy bills 
Sky News: Labour’s £28bn green pledge still the ‘level of ambition’, says shadow business secretary 
BBC News: Bankers’ bonuses: No cap under Labour, says Reeves 
[6] See note 2 
[7] Ipsos: Latest UK Opinion Polls: Government approval recent changes
[8] 38 Degrees: Campaign win! Rishi Sunak announces £5 billion windfall tax on energy giants’ profits 
[9] See note 8
[10] 38 Degrees: How 100,000 of us stood up to callous energy companiess’ 

The Complete Failure of Electricity Privatisation

I’m still reading James Meek’s book on how this country’s public utilities have been wrecked by Thatcherite privatisation. I’ve just finished the chapters on the mess it made of the railways and the water supply, and am roughly half-way through the chapter on electricity. I intend to put up posts on these particular subjects in due course, but it might be sometime before I finish the book. Because it gets me so angry with the way the utilities and the British public have been sold out that sometimes the only thing I can do is put the book down and go and do something else instead. Or else my head will literally explode, like Kryten’s when something gets Red Dwarf’s metal man too infuriated.

I’ve just got to the pages in the book which describe how Littlechild, the academic behind the privatisation of British electricity, contrived a formula to allow the electricity companies to make massive profits while supposedly keeping prices down. But instead it allowed the companies to manipulate the system by taking power stations strategically offline to create massive profits and grossly inflated prices. Ed Wallis, the head of Powergen, did it in Yorkshire and Warwickshire.

At the moment there have been stories in the right-wing press about the French coming into provide us with electricity that we couldn’t produce domestically. I have a feeling this is all being blamed on the Green agenda, such as it is. In fact it’s almost certainly due to the privatisation of the energy companies, many of which are owned by the French state company EDF. And what also comes across very strongly in that chapter is the bewilderment and anger the French trade unionists have over the privatisation of British electricity and the supine attitude, as they see it, of the British trade unions.

One member of the French union, the CGT, told his British counterpart, ‘There’s only one country stupid enough to privatise its electricity, and that’s Britain’.

So much for the admiration the foreigners were expected to have for Thatcherite , global Britain.

As for the term ‘privatisation’, it was coined in 1936 as reprivatisierung, to describe the Nazi economic policy of mass privatisation. Which I think counts against the Nazis being some kind of socialists.

38 Degrees Campaign for Social Tariff on Energy Bills

This is another excellent petition from the internet democracy organisation that I’ve had absolutely no hesitation in signing.

‘David, the Government has broken a promise to protect thousands of vulnerable households from fuel poverty, without even having the courage to admit it.

Despite promising more than once to publish a plan for a social tariff on energy bills – which would make them more affordable for those struggling with costs – it’s now being reported that the plan has been “quietly shelved” and is “no longer a priority.” [1] This is shameful.

The Government has been under pressure for months to introduce this plan. In September Martin Lewis and a coalition of 140 charities, consumer groups and MPs wrote to Rishi Sunak asking for urgent action to introduce a social tariff for energy bills. [2] With letters of no confidence coming in from his own MPs, you can bet Sunak will be feeling the heat – he won’t want this broken promise to make the headlines. [3]

Energy bills and the rising cost of living is the biggest worry for many people like us, more than immigration, the environment or even the NHS. [4] The Government will want to be seen to be taking action on this, so if hundreds of thousands of us call them out for their lack of action, it could force them to publish these plans.

David, if you think the Government should keep their promise, will you join the campaign to introduce a social tariff? It only takes a few seconds to add your name.

COUNT ME IN

I DISAGREE BECAUSE

A social tariff is a discounted rate for energy bills for vulnerable households. [5] They already exist for broadband and phone bills and there have been many calls, from the likes of Martin Lewis, Age UK, Citizens Advice and others, to introduce one. [6] We can’t sit by and let them get away with breaking this promise.

David, thousands of people like you have been fighting with 38 Degrees for what’s right over the last year – and we’ve made a real difference. From forcing ministers to increase Universal Credit as prices skyrocketed, to 20,000 of us telling Ofgem’s consultation to keep energy customers safe, 38 Degrees supporters keep issues top of the agenda. [7]

So will you sign now to demand the Government brings in a social tariff for energy, so no one goes cold or gets into debt this winter? Together, we can make life better for those who need it most.

COUNT ME IN

I DISAGREE BECAUSE

Thanks for all you do,

Matt, Jonathan, Megan and the 38 Degrees

NOTES:
[1] The Mirror: Social energy tariff plan that would have slashed bills ‘quietly scrapped’ by Government 
[2] Money Saving Expert: Martin and MSE among organisations calling for energy social tariff as millions expected to struggle with bills this winter 
[3] Sky News: Rebel Tories submit ‘several’ no confidence letters in Sunak 
[4] YouGov: The most important issues facing the country 
[5] Scope: The social tariff on energy explained 
[6] See note 2.
[7] 38 Degrees: Sign the petition: We need an emergency budget that boosts Universal Credit now 
The Times: Crackdown on prepayment meters: Ofgem ‘must do more to protect vulnerable’

38 Degrees Petition Against the Return of the Forced Installation of Pre-Payment Meters

‘Ofgem is letting energy suppliers force-fit prepayment meters AGAIN – nearly a year after 38 Degrees supporters came together to help get the practice suspended. [1] This means struggling families are at risk of being cut off because they can’t afford to top up thanks to sky high energy prices.

Ofgem says new rules will protect vulnerable people – rules that tens of thousands of 38 Degrees supporters were instrumental in securing – BUT it’s already been revealed that the first batch of new warrants wrongly included a mother with a weeks-old baby! [2]

Energy companies can’t be trusted to self-regulate – and Ofgem is too weak to hold them to account. A total ban on forced prepayment meters is the only thing that will prevent more heart-breaking stories like this. But it’ll take all of us coming together to make that happen.

David, the backlash starts now! If you agree everyone needs protection from this callous practice, sign the petition now – then share with your friends and family. It only takes a few seconds to add your name!

I’LL ADD MY NAME

I DISAGREE BECAUSE …

38 Degrees has been fighting for this from the start. Here’s what we’ve achieved together so far, David:

• Last year, 100,000 of us demanded energy companies stop the practice – helping to create a groundswell of support that became a national scandal. [3]
• 38 Degrees supporters and staff hit the airwaves – with one supporter appearing on BBC Newsnight to tell her story about waking up to find men in her home. [4]
• The 38 Degrees team submitted Freedom of Information requests to Ofgem that revealed the scale of debt weighing down prepayment meter customers – that many will never pay back. [5]
• More than 20,000 of us submitted our views to Ofgem’s consultation, resulting in millions more being protected from forced transfer. [6]

We’ve fought long and hard on this, and we can’t stop now. If enough of us come together today to call for an outright ban on forced prepayment meters, we’ll make it clear to Ofgem that we are NOT going to stop. It only takes a few seconds to add your name!

I’LL ADD MY NAME

I DISAGREE BECAUSE …

Thanks for being involved,

Matt, Flo, Jonathan and the 38 Degrees team

NOTES:
[1] BBC News: Energy firms allowed to restart force-fitting prepayment meters  
[2] BBC News: New mothers faced energy meter force-fittings  
[3] 38 Degrees: Don’t force customers onto prepayment meters!
[4] Twitter: BBC Newsnight
[5] 38 Degrees: Energy debt scandal revealed – thanks to 38 Degrees supporters
[6] 38 Degrees: How we held Ofgem to account to protect the most vulnerable‘

Paul Meek on the Damage Done by Post Office Privatisation

As I posted a few days ago, I’ve started reading Paul Meek’s Private Island: Why Britain Now Belongs to Someone Else, about the massive harm done to Britain’s public services and the genuinely great British public by the privatisation of the public utilities. The book attacks the privatisation of the electricity and water companies, the part privatisation of the NHS, the sale of council houses and what would happen if Nigel Farage got into power and was effectively allowed to privatise us all. And the first chapter is on the privatisation of the Royal MailChristi.

This is interesting as it seems to have been done following the precedents of the Dutch and German Post Offices. The Dutch, who Meek notes have tended to be seen by Brits and Americans as Hippy lefty-liberals, privatised their Post Office decades ago in the mid-to late ’70s. He talks to the last left-wing minister over a publicly-owned post office, a Christian Radical and member of the PRR party in the Netherlands, who is still angry about its privatisation. The rationale for the privatisation of the post office in Britain and the Netherlands seems to be the same: as a publicly owned company, it will continue to be inefficient and suck up taxpayers’ money unless privatised and exposed to competition. Except in the Netherlands and Germany the mail remained for a long time a state monopoly, and it was only later, after it had made money, that it was exposed to competition from private companies. In Britain, Labour pushed through liberalisation of the postal service, introducing private competition, before it was privatised. This was purely ideological. Richard Hooper, the civil servant who compiled two reports demanding its privatisation, stated that it was done in order to force the other European countries to set up private rivals to their form state postal monopolies. It was also partly demanded by European law. Which somewhat contracts all the huffing and nonsense from the Conservative right and Reform about the EU being an evil Communist superstate.

The effect on ordinary postal workers was devastating. There are three private postal services in the Netherlands: SandD, TNT as well as PostNL. The private postal companies run a system in which the postmen and -women are each given so many pieces of mail and then required to sort through it at home and then deliver it. Meek talks to one postwoman who simply hasn’t been able to keep up with the sheer volume of the mail she’s been required to deliver, and so her house is stuffed full of it. The Dutch describe this job as a ‘bybaan’, a part-time job for people who don’t need full time work because they’ve got another source of income or a rich husband. These postmen and -women are paid below the minimum wage and don’t have health insurance. And unless they work extremely hard, they don’t get holiday pay either.

In Britain, Meek visits a couple of Post Office sorting centres, and hears about their operation and the pressures on the Mail from the rise of email and the subsequent decline of snailmail and private competition from management, workers and the trade unions. At the time he was writing – the book was published ten years ago in 2014 – postal workers were still given a decent wage and long term workers had five weeks holiday entitlement. He also talks to the heads of their rivals, who think that the mail’s workers are overpaid. Their workers are staggeringly underpaid, especially outside London, and they are on zero hours contracts.

Despite the decline in ordinary mail, there’s been an expansion of corporate mail from companies sending out catalogues, and as internet shopping has taken off, the volume of parcel mail has risen. But the civil servants and private corporations were still demanding further cuts to the workforce. Many of the jobs shed by the former Royal Mail were through natural wastage and people taking early retirement. But one predatory company reckoned that if Royal Mail had laid of 3 per cent more people, and cut wages by another three percent, it would produce a nice little profit, no, a nice massive profit for shareholders.

There’s also a campaign against the USO – the public service order requiring that the mail delivers six days a week to everywhere in the British Isles at the same price. He talks to the people of the Scots island of Muck, who may only have deliveries on three days a week due to the weather preventing the ferries from coming, and talks about how Jersey also cut back its postal deliveries in order to save money. In other countries around the world from America to New Zealand, the postal services are cutting back deliveries to only a few days a week. Despite the problems getting the mail to remote places like Muck, the Royal Mail is obliged to do it. But the private companies are aiming to sabotage the Mail’s ability to do so by competing with them in the big urban centres like London and Manchester. This cuts into some of the market that’s effectively subsidising Royal Mail deliveries to places like Muck, which are in themselves loss-making. SandD opened up a branch in Manchester, and were praised for it by George Osborne, who boasted that it was creating jobs. The book says very clearly that this wasn’t the case. The total number of postmen in Manchester would be the same due to the volume of post remaining the same, only the SandD workers would be worse paid.

The chapter concludes with the report that after a campaign by the unions and members of the Dutch parliament, conditions for the Netherlands’ private postal workers had been improved with laws passed to give them better wages and full-term contracts. There was bitter rivalry between the Dutch and German postal services, as neither the Dutch nor the Germans wanted the other’s former state postal service to operate in their countries, but both were setting up private subsidiaries of their former state monopoly to undercut the others’. And both sides were accusing the other of using dirty tactics by doing this.

The book was written ten years ago. I have friends, who are postal workers and they’ve told me that the company is determined to cut wages and jobs. It hasn’t quite happened, but my fear is that Britain’s postal service will end up like the private companies in the Netherlands, staffed by genuinely exploited people to generate profits for senior management and shareholders.

Thatcherism is a fraud and failure. End it now.

The Complete Failure of Thatcher’s Plan to Create a Share-Owning Democracy

Okay, I’ve just started reading James Meek’s Private Island: Why Britain Belongs to Someone Else. It’s an attack on the Thatcherite policy of privatisation, followed by both the Tories and New Labour. The first chapter is particularly relevant, as it’s about the privatisation of the post office. I’ve only been reading the introduction so far, and it may take me a little while to get through the book as I might have to take breaks to calm down after reading about some of the decisions and propaganda the Tories and later New Labour put out about how wonderful everything would be after they’d sold off the family silver. Meek states in the introduction that one of the purposes behind the privatisation of the utilities, apart from the idea that this would make them independent of government subsidies, free them from the grip of management and trade unions resistant to change and so make them more efficient, was to create a share-owning democracy. The British public was to be encouraged to participate in capitalism through buying shares in the newly privatised industries.

It didn’t work. Massively.

Before Thatcher took power, 40 per cent of shares were owned by individuals. In 1985, nearly halfway through her career as Leaderene, 30 per cent of shares were held by private individuals. By 2010 or thereabouts, only 12 per cent of shares were owned by individuals.

And this is only just one aspect of Thatcher’s great plan for an invigorated, popular capitalism.

He also attacks the privatisation of the railways. The privatisations were accompanied by massive layoffs. In the case of the railways, this included not only ordinary workers, but also qualified railways engineers and researchers. This was all done in the name of modernising the railway network using new technology. Except that the newly privatised Railtrack had sacked all the engineers and researchers who could have told them this technology didn’t exist. And so, despite being an enthusiast for Thatcher and his demented ideology, Blair had to renationalise it in 2006.

Von Hayek is also sharply dealt with. Thatcher took her ideas from his The Road to Serfdom. Von Hayek thought that socialism led automatically to Communism, which was the same as Fascism, as both Communism and Fascism were centrally planned economies. Except in Britain’s case, it didn’t. The 1948 Labour government nationalised much of British industry, but the majority of the firms still remained private. People could still choose which services and firms they should buy from in the private sector and there was no Gestapo around forcing people into the state slavery Von Hayek feared. Before Thatcher took power and revived it, it was utterly discredited.

Thatcher also hated the unions and her view of the destruction of the NUM during the miner’s strike is really bonkers: she claimed she had defeated ‘the Fascist left’. Fascists despise trade unions. Hitler banned them completely, and while they were an important component of Mussolini’s corporate state, their powers were severely restricted. Real power lay with the corporations and the Fascist party.

I’m very interested in what the rest of the book has to say about all this, and plan to review it in due course. It’s important, because despite the fact that Thatcher’s privatisations never had the support of the majority of the public and can be shown to be disastrous, the parties are still determined to continue supporting them and the great lie that Thatcher somehow made Britain more efficient, prosperous and so on. It also strikes me very strongly that the current controversy over illegal immigration is being used as a diversion to stop people looking at Thatcherism’s economic failure. Over the past few days we’ve had Richard Tice tell everyone that the Tories should give way to Reform, who will overtake them and are the only chance of stopping Starmer’s Labour. Considering how poorly Reform have done in elections, I find that very hard to believe. But there’s a lot of talk on the right-wing news channels that immigration will be the issue that destroys the Conservatives. It’s one of the major issues, apart from Israel and Gaza, the war in Ukraine and the Post Office scandal. But it’s being presented as if it were the only major issue, and the source of Britain’s problems. Mass immigration does have major problems, such as the provision of housing and other services for the newcomers, integration and community cohesion and so on. But what is causing real misery is Thatcherite economics – the greed and ineptitude of the private utilities, as shown by sewage in Britain’s watercourses, rising energy bills, cancelled trains and a chronic shortage of social housing. But the concentration on the issue of immigration distracts attention from all of that.

And so the zombie economics of Thatcherite capitalism is allowed to stumble on with Farage and Tice telling us that illegal immigrants are the real threat here, and everything will somehow be better once that gets sorted out.

Open Britain: Pints of Wine Are a Fantasy Solution to Divert Attention from Real Problems of Brexit

I got this message from the pro-democracy organisation last Friday. This was when the Tory party was claiming that Brexit was a successful because it meant that we could now buy wine in pints. The organisation’s head, Mark Kieran, rightly points out that no-one has ever, ever, not even once, demanded wine in pints. This is a fantasy solution to a fictitious problem to divert attention from the real harm Brexit has caused which politicians should be busy trying to correct.

‘Dear David,

I spent a lot of time during my late teens working in bars, and I remember lots of people ordering wine.

I remember them ordering small glasses, large glasses, whole bottles, sometimes several bottles at a time. I even remember the odd person enquiring about buying a magnum or a jeroboam (though mostly just in jest).

I also remember people complaining about things.

I remember them complaining that they could no longer order a pint of beer, hand over a pound (in paper note form) and get some change.

I remember them complaining that they could no longer chat with the person next to them without being drowned out by a jukebox or interrupted by the beeps, bleeps and bangs of a video game.

What I definitely DON’T REMEMBER is anyone – not a single person in all the years I spent behind those bars – ever mentioning, never mind requesting, a pint bottle of wine.

And that should tell you everything you need to know: There is no demand for one-pint bottles of wine. No one wants to buy them. No one cares whether they exist or not. It’s a total non-issue.

The fact that this nonsense is heralded so triumphantly by Brexit loyalists says a lot about where our country is today.

These Brexit die-hards know that, contrary to the promises made by the snake-oil salesmen during the referendum, Brexit isn’t delivering solutions to the actual problems people have in their lives. It isn’t making food, electricity or gas more affordable. It isn’t making it easier to access hospital treatment or to get decent social care for elderly relatives. It isn’t increasing take-home pay or providing better jobs for young people. Frankly, it’s making those things worse.

And because of that, they are obliged to come up with fantasy problems to which they can claim their fantasy Brexit is the solution. Our passports were the wrong colour. The emergency exit signs in the Dartford Tunnel had odd numbers on them. Everyone’s distraught because they can’t buy wine in pint bottles.

It’s all so trivial and so very tedious…and particularly galling when millions of decent people across the country are struggling with extreme hardship on a daily basis.

But perhaps we can do something about it.

There is almost certainly going to be a general election in 2024. That election provides an opportunity to push back against ‘nonsense government’, to insist that our elected politicians stop taking us for fools and start putting our REAL priorities front and centre.

The first step in that process is to get them to face facts.

Most of the politicians who will be seeking our votes next year have already made clear they will not engage in any form of Brexit debate. They don’t want to go over old ground. They don’t want to replay the debate about whether Brexit was right or wrong.

And that is absolutely fine. Brexit is done. The country made its decision. We left the EU. There is no way to change that decision now, and there is no immediate route back to EU membership.

But what is NOT FINE is them using that as an excuse to avoid dealing with the very real damage being done to our country by ‘Long Brexit’.

In the same way that we have come to realise a bout of COVID-19 can have significant negative effects on our health months and even years after infection, it’s increasingly clear that Brexit is having a significant negative effect on our national well-being all these years later.

As with Long Covid, the symptoms of Long Brexit are often difficult to recognise and to disentangle from other underlying issues. But disentangle them we must because, in the same way that Long Covid can persistently reduce the quality of someone’s life, Long Brexit is persistently weakening our economy, fraying the fabric of our society and undermining the institutions on which our democracy depends.

If we do nothing else in 2024, we must ensure that we use our democratic power to elect politicians with the courage to find a cure for this Long Brexit so we can start to get our country back on track.

Hope you are enjoying the festive period.

All the very best,

Mark Kieran
CEO, Open Britain’

Power Outages in Bristol, Lancashire and Scotland

Hi peeps, I hope you’ve kept safe and well this Christmas. We’ve seen on the news the terrible disruption Storm Gerrit has caused north of the border in Scotland. I feel especially deeply for the poor souls who’ve lost power and are not expected to get it back for two days. Further south, I read today in one of the local news sites online that the northwest is also expected to get hit with power outages due to the storm, and the local electricity companies have said that they’re preparing to tackle any that occur and what the public can do to contact them if they get them. A few days ago I also posted a piece about the power outages I experienced in my bit of south Bristol. I found a piece yesterday on the local news site, BristolLive, that said that Brislington and Hartcliffe in south Bristol had also been hit yesterday with power outages. The site put it down to Storm Gerrit, although this was not confirmed by the power companies.

It all feels like the 70s once again with power cuts and strikes. Except Sunak and the Tories can blame the blackouts on the miners this time. This is purely the result of profiteering privatised power companies, who’ve made massive profits for their shareholders and chief executive but haven’t reinvested in maintaining a public service. The electricity companies and public utilities desperately need to be renationalised.

Historians Condemn Ministry of Justice Plan to Destroy Historical Wills

I found this story from the Groaniad on my news feed. Entitled ‘Ministry of Justice plan to destroy historical wills is ‘insane’, say experts’ and written by the paper’s social affairs correspondent, Robert Booth, it begins

‘“Sheer vandalism” and “insane”. This is how leading historians on Monday described government plans to destroy millions of historical wills to save on storage costs.

The Ministry of Justice is consulting on digitising and then throwing away about 100m paper originals of the last wills and testaments of British people dating back more than 150 years in an effort to save £4.5m a year.

But Tom Holland, the classical and medieval historian and co-host of The Rest is History podcast, said the proposal to empty shelves at the Birmingham archive was “obviously insane”. Sir Richard Evans, historian of modern Germany and modern Europe, said “to destroy the original documents is just sheer vandalism in the name of bureaucratic efficiency”.

Ministers believe digitsiation will speed up access to the papers, but the proposal has provoked a backlash among historians and archivists who took to X, formerly Twitter, to decry it as “bananas” and “a seriously bad idea”.

The government is proposing to keep the originals of some wills of “famous people” – likely including those of Charles Darwin, Charles Dickens and Diana, Princess of Wales – but others would be destroyed after 25 years and only a digital copy would be kept.

It is feared that wills of ordinary people, some of whom may become historically significant in the future, risk being lost.’

See: https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/ministry-of-justice-plan-to-destroy-historical-wills-is-insane-say-experts/ar-AA1lGP9C?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=0c5c2347ee4b48469f38ba2a5d7272ab&ei=13

This is a shocking decision. There were similar ideas back in the ’90s when the ‘paperless office’ was all the rage. One problem is that the digitisation could mean that the records are preserved on computer formats that become obsolete and so unreadable. And another problem is that the paper or parchment the wills are written on may also contain information. When the idea of getting rid of paper records in favour scanning them digitally was first mooted in the ’90s, the Financial Times ran a very good article against it. It was by an historian who described his surprise when working in the archives to see other researchers sniffing the documents they were studying. In fact they were studying material from the Great Plague, during which people attempted to fumigate and disinfect their homes through with various substance. I think one of these contained vinegar. These concoctions left their smell on the documents for centuries, and so the scholars studying them were sniffing to see if these chemicals had been used. And I can remember the smell that came from the government documents that had been donated to the Empire and Commonwealth Museum in Bristol. There was a very rich smell from some of them, very much like sherry, which made me wonder about the senior civil servants and others who may have studied them.

It’s not just paper archives that politicians have demanded should be scanned. When I was studying for my archaeology doctorate at Bristol University I went to a weekend symposium on rock art. One of the other archaeologists attending the event was a Portuguese lady who was very angry at her government’s attempts to digitally preserve the vast panels of art carved into the sides of river valleys. The valleys were scheduled to be dammed for hydroelectric projects, and these panels, hundreds of feet long, would be lost beneath the waters. The Portuguese government had decided to have the art digitally scanned by laser. This works well for small items you could hold in your hand, but was useless when it came to such large monuments, and the rock art was lost.

The plan to destroy these wills is nothing short of barbarous. If it goes ahead, it could seriously damage our knowledge of the past. I realise government departments are under pressure to make savings, but this will just cause immense damage and loss.