Wind farm subsidy equivalent to £100,000 per job

By Harry Phibbs
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The Sunday Telegraph this morning has some astonishing figures on the extent of the subsidies spent on the hideous wind farms despoiling the British countryside:

A new analysis of government and industry figures shows that wind turbine owners received £1.2billion in the form of a consumer subsidy, paid by a supplement on electricity bills last year. They employed 12,000 people, to produce an effective £100,000 subsidy on each job.

It adds:

In Scotland, which has 203 onshore wind farms — more than anywhere else in the UK — just 2,235 people are directly employed to work on them despite an annual subsidy of £344million. That works out at £154,000 per job.

Donald Trump has warned the Scottish Parliament about the loss of tourism and danger to wild life of proceeding with wind farms. As well as the more fundamental point that they are pathetically inefficient at producing energy - which is why other countries such as Spain and Germany are giving up on them. If subsidy is regarded as justified to provide low carbon energy then nuclear power is much more realistic. Better still, of course, is shale gas which can reduce carbon emissions while making a profit. 

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Voters have good reason not to believe politicians and their statistics

By Mark Wallace 
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"Pity the rational politician", laments the header on Peter Kellner's Telegraph article today. Leaving aside the question of how many rational politicians there are, why should we pity them?

Do so, Kellner tells us, because they're lumbered with such a stubborn electorate. Voters just won't believe the facts. The numbers and the academic analysis tell us that immigration is falling, educational standards are rising and crime is down, but the people don't buy it. That, he argues, leaves us prey to a "knee-jerk", "populist agenda".

It's undeniable that the people do not trust the political class. Saying that voters think politicians are prone to lying is about as insightful as revealing that Wayne Rooney doesn't keep a copy of Wittgenstein's collected works in his kit bag.

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There are plenty of questions to which shale gas is the answer

By Mark Wallace
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A few years ago, I visited the Soviet-era Stalin museum in the tyrant's home town of Gori in northern Georgia. The museum has many curios - from the small hovel in which he was born, sheltered under a ludicrously overblown marble gazebo, to his official railway carriage in which tourists can (and always do) take a snapshot of his toilet. The museum has itself become a historical exhibit - a staggeringly dishonest exercise in totalitarian propaganda, preserved for posterity as a demonstration of the Soviet regime's lies.

Even the staff are engaged in a stark demonstration of living history. Our guide, a rather stern lady, had clearly learned her entire tour in English by rote at some point in the 1970s. She rattled through it word-perfectly, shooting magazines of syllables at us like a stuttering machine gun. It was an impressive memory stunt - but when she was interrupted by questions her comprehension of English was very limited, and it became clear as we went through the plush galleries that she didn't have a clue what the words in her patter actually meant.

Sometimes political ideas gain the same rote-learned quality. We repeat them as obvious statements with which no-one can disagree, while paying far too little attention to what they mean in practice.

Here are a few: "we must rebalance the economy", "we need a British manufacturing renaissance", "more young people should go into engineering", "energy prices are too high", "the North must not be left behind by growth focused on the South East". I'd wager that most MPs and commentators have said at least one of those at some point - many will have said all of them repeatedly in recent years.

But what can be done to fulfil these aims?

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Making business uncompetitive. Moving emissions abroad. Blighting the landscape. Soaking poorer voters. Problems with the Government's climate change policy

By Paul Goodman
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Man-made global warming is a menace to the planet.  For this reason, we must not only cut our carbon emissions, but do so faster than our competitors.  To the aggregates levy, the landfill tax, and the EU's emissions trading scheme must thus be added the carbon price floor - and the legislative framework of the Climate Change Act.  Fossil fuels that produce emissions, such as oil and coal, must give way to solar and wind power - even if these are expensive for consumers, especially poorer ones, and unsightly for the environment itself; and even if, too, they can't provide the necessary power - risking a return to 1970s-style power cuts.  If you don't believe this claim and have an hour or so to spare, test it out on the Climate Change Department's own 2050 Pathways Calculator.

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The developed world may soon be compensating the developing world for climate change

By Matthew Barrett
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At the climate talks currently being conducted in Doha, there is a radical proposal that, it seems possible, may be accepted by many of the major developed countries in the world. The UN talks look like they will conclude with an agreement that developed countries will compensate developing countries for the impact of climate change. 

The principle of compensating the third world has been discussed since 1992's climate talks in Rio, but many industrial Western countries, especially the United States, have resisted such an idea. The US appears ready to consent to it this time, because the wording of the proposal caps compensation payouts by wealthy countries at a nonetheless-eye-watering €100bn a year.

Our man in Doha, Gregory Barker, pictured as part of the British delegation, right, has been keeping followers updated on Twitter. By all accounts, delegates at the Qatari capital's conference centre are extremely tired, and the talks have frustratingly stretched on for longer than expected, having been supposed to have finished last night. It is still unclear what the final outcome of the talks will be, or if the radical plan will finally be adopted, but the signs so far point to definite progress.

The effect of the resultant climate change bill on Britain is not likely to be a happy one; countries have signed up to a further reduction in carbon emissions, which usually means an increase in fuel prices for British consumers, a less competitive atmosphere in which to do business, and so on.

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Nick Boles’s proposal for solving Britain’s housing shortage? Build beautiful

By Peter Hoskin
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Judging only from the headlines in today’s papers, you might get the impression that Nick Boles wants to pour ugly, ugly concrete over Britain’s countryside. They’re taking their cue from the minister’s claim, spoken in a Newsnight interview which airs tonight, that:

“In the UK and England at the moment we’ve got about nine per cent of land developed. All we need to do is build on another two to three per cent of land and we’ll have solved a housing problem.”

But, actually, it’s beauty — not ugliness — that Mr Boles is keen to spread. In a speech that he’s delivering to the Town and Country Planning Association’s annual conference tomorrow, he suggests that a lot of the resistance to new housing developments comes about because the developments are often “pig ugly”. This creates a “vicious cycle”, which he describes thus:

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Osborne and Davey both claim victory over green power deal. Green groups attack it.

By Paul Goodman
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• Householders and business pay £2.35 billion per year towards the costs of green power.

• Under the deal agreed by George Osborne and Ed Davey, this will rise to £7.6billion a year by 2020.

• Energy bills have more than doubled since 2004 to more than £1,300 a year per household.

• They will rise under the deal over the next two decades by an estimated £178 a year.

• The contribution to nuclear and renewables making up £95 by 2020.

These are the headline points for consumers  in the Daily Telegraph's front page account of the Osborne/Davey agreement.

Then there is the question of which Cabinet Minister got his way, after negotiations between the two that have stretched for weeks.

• "Lib Dem sources said that the party was “extremely pleased” to have won support for the reforms that would mean more wind farms and nuclear power stations were built."

• "Conservative sources were claiming the compromise deal was a victory for Mr Osborne, after he secured concessions limiting the level of taxpayer cash spent on green energy in the long term."

The Chancellor apparently "threw out Lib Dem demands for a target that would have forced Britain to get all its power from green sources by 2030".  Treasury spin?

Well, Andy Atkins of Friends of the Earth says that the deal “banged the final nail in the coffin of [David] Cameron’s pledge to lead the greenest government ever”.  So judge for yourself.

Now George Osborne is dragged into the Greenpeace sting

By Peter Hoskin
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Turns out that Chris Heaton-Harris wasn’t the only person to fall foul of Greenpeace’s camera lenses. The video above was published by the group yesterday, but has only just been reported, by the Telegraph and the Independent. It includes Peter Lilley and Lord Howell of Guildford in its cast list.

Both men mention George Osborne in relation to the Government’s green energy policy. First, Mr Lilley, speaking about the recent reshuffle:

“Basically I think Osborne wanted to get people into key positions who could begin to get the government off the hook of the commitments it made very foolishly.”

And then Lord Howell, who also happens to be the Chancellor’s father-in-law:

“The Prime Minister is not familiar with these issues, doesn’t understand them … Osborne is of course getting this message and is putting pressure on.”

In many respects, this is unsurprising. It has already been widely reported that Mr Osborne is pushing to cut the subsidies handed out for renewable energy. And it doesn’t take any secret insight to see the recent reshuffle as part of that battle.

But it’s still far from ideal when the Chancellor has to release statements, as he has done this evening, emphasising that he “supports Government policy”. And it’s even less ideal that the green policies the Conservatives do have — and the ones they should have — are being subsumed by so much camera footage. Now might be the time to reinvigorate that agenda, as I suggested in a recent column. 

Chris Heaton-Harris MP’s remarks typify David Cameron’s wind farm troubles

By Peter Hoskin
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There’s no denying it, this morning’s Guardian story about Chris Heaton-Harris is an embarrassing one for the Conservative Party — and a troublesome one for David Cameron. Mr Heaton-Harris, who is the Tory campaign manager in Corby, was recorded suggesting that he encouraged the writer and anti-wind farm campaigner James Delingpole to involve himself as an independent in the by-election. You can watch the footage here and here, but the gist of it is contained in Mr Heaton Harris’s remark that:

“I suggested to him that he did it … Please don’t tell anybody ever … He just did it because it’s a long campaign, it’s six weeks to cause some hassle and get people talking … Maybe we’ve just moved the [wind farm] agenda on.”

Mr Heaton-Harris is this morning downplaying the story, claiming that some of it can be attributing to him “bragging about things beyond my control,” and pointing out — in a statement that’s included in the first video — that Mr Delingpole was never actually a candidate in the election because he never actually submitted a deposit, and has since pulled out of proceedings anyway. “I always hoped that James Delingpole would not formally enter the race,” reads one part of the statement, “as I hoped to convince him that I and the Conservative Party represent his views across a broad spectrum of issues.”

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John Hayes lets his rhetoric get away from Coalition policy — but does he have the blessings of the Tory leadership?

By Peter Hoskin
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“Death knell for wind farms,” blares the front page of today’s Daily Telegraph. “Minister signals the end of the wind farm,” trumpets the Daily Mail. Both were taking their cue from John Hayes’s declaration that “enough is enough” when it comes to on-shore wind farms. It was a declaration that even had Christopher Booker wondering whether the end is now in sight for those vertiginous wind turbines.

Except there’s a problem: the minister probably let his rhetoric run ahead of the situation. It turns out that Mr Hayes’ departmental superior, Ed Davey, blocked him from attacking wind power in a speech he delivered yesterday — but the attack made it into interviews anyway. Lib Dem sources are now putting it about that an end to on-shore wind farms isn’t, and couldn’t ever be, Coalition policy.

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