Labels: Local Authorities, roads, transport, untrue grit POSTED BY WAT TYLER AT 4:48 PM COMMENTS (23) | TRACKBACK (0) Labels: debt, fiscal policy, politicosFRIDAY, JANUARY 08, 2010
A View From The Ice Road
Last evening Tyler drove the treacherous Ice Road across the frozen wastes where Berkshire used to meet Surrey*. And as he gingerly crawled along, he listened to some buffoon on the radio explaining why two arctic winters in a row do not mean the global warming hippies have got it all wrong.
True, the £200m pa tax-funded Department of Climate Propaganda Met Office has once again made a complete horlicks of its winter weather prediction (predicting only a one-in-seven chance of a cold winter). And true, they use this same much hyped "expertise" to predict global apocalypse by 2100. But somehow - in some way Tyler couldn't quite fathom - it's much easier to make predictions covering 100 years than those covering 100 days.
Later on Newsnight, official warmist spokesperson Susan Watts explained that the public are pretty dim. And that makes it very difficult to convey the Met Office's outstanding reliability on millennial climate change in the face of their screaming unreliability on forecasting the weather. If only we could all be as bright as her, we 'd understand that climate change is not the same as the weather.
Sadly, because we're so dim, we're instead left wondering why we've got an expensive Met Office that can't do the stuff we need it to do, but canproduce reams of global warming guff none of us ever asked for.
But of course, it isn't just the Met Office where the weather/climate priorities are expensively arse about face. Despite the fact that our councils can't even afford to stock up on road grit, Miliband Jnr today announcedthe Commissars' latest money inferno - a £75bn programme to build another 6,400 offshore wind turbines to save the planet.
Except, post the Copenhagen fiasco, they seem to have dropped the bit about saving the planet - these days it's all about saving the election economy:"Our policies in support of offshore wind energy have already put us ahead of every other country in the world... The offshore wind industry is at the heart of the UK economy’s shift to low carbon and could be worth £75 billion and support up to 70,000 jobs by 2020... We did it before with oil and gas in the North Sea and we’ll do it again for offshore wind."
Now if you think you've heard this kind of thing before, you have - back in the glorious 1970s, when it was known as... er, "picking winners". And it cost us many tens of billions with virtually no payback (see this blog).
So against those £75bn windmills, how much have we spent on grit for our death trap skating rink roads? (which IIRC never got this bad in the 70s, even though at that point the climate hippies were telling us the world was freezing to death).
The local councils' version of the story is summarised here. Councils are responsible for gritting the vast majority of our 250,000 miles of roads (only motorways and a few A roads are covered by the Highways Agency). And they say they have treated "the equivalent of 1.7 million miles of road" (although words like "equivalent" always make Tyler suspicious). They reckon it's cost them £12.2m - about £7 per mile.
Unfortunately they are now virtually out of salt supplies, which with more snow promised sounds like a Grade 1 disaster.
Some very obvious points:
So next time you're stuck in a snowdrift listening to some arrogant buffoon telling you that it wouldn't make financial sense for warming Britain to spend more on gritting, feel free to put your fist through the radio.
*Footnote: The ancient and proud county of Berkshire now exists in name only - after 12 centuries it was abolished by the Commissars in 1998.
PS I know we've made this point many times, but it is important we remember it. Every single Labour government we have ever had has ended in disaster. Usually, it's a straightforward financial and economic meltdown of the kind you expect from socialism. But it can't be coincidence that the abiding image of Labour's last go at government is of wintry streets lined with rotting rubbish - and ours now hasn't been collected since well before Xmas.
PPS I know what you're thinking - Tyler must have made some mistake - surely local councils have spent more than £12.2m on gritting. But I promise you that's the official number from the Local Government Association. Here's the full quote:
"An LGA analysis of council gritting activity over the last three weeks, since the cold snap started, estimated that:
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 06, 2010
For Real
According to the Major, the crisis has moved way beyond the handling capacity of our dysfunctional democracy.
"Here we are, the country bankrupt, ruled by a Scottish communist, stuck in a war we can't win, overrun by mad mullahs nobody does anything about, and our only alternative is a lightweight PR man. Gah! We need a leader - someone who can get a grip." He fixed me with those bloodshot eyes of his, and tapped the side of his nose meaningfully. "It won't be long now - you just wait."
Well, obviously the Major is a tad right of centre, but he sure ain't the only one casting round for Another Way. And watching PM's Questions today, you can see why.
What exactly is the point of PMQs?
"Will the Prime Minister admit he's crap?"
"I'll tell him who's crap! The party opposite is crap, crap, crap!"
"Once again, the Prime Minister has ducked the question. The IMF says he's crap, the OECD says he's crap, and even his own personal Hoon says he's crap! Why won't he admit he's crap?"
"The only crap round here is the party opposite. It's crap! And if it was left to them, we'd be in the crap!"
Errrrugghh...
I've just read the Treasury Select Committee Report on the preposterous Pre-Budget Report. Here's what it says:
The Committee - Labour dominated, remember - also highlights the shameful lack of information on the government's future public expenditure plans:"There is a sense that the Treasury are using uncertainty to suit themselves. Despite substantial uncertainties they still produce some forecasts out to 2014-15 and illustrative projections out to 2017-18. We can see no good reason for the Treasury failing to produce illustrative figures for future expenditure... We recognise that there will be uncertainty in these figures, but they are produced as part of the Spending Review process so there appears to be no argument of principle against their publication."
To summarise, the Committee is saying the government is not levelling with us over the true magnitude of our fiscal crisis, and the full horror of the medicine we'll have to take.
Why is that?
Well, because they figure if we knew the truth, we'd never re-elect them.
Fine. But couldn't Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition tell us the truth?
Well, no, because if they did, we might associate the nasty medicine withthem, and not elect them either.
So we're stuck.
And you know the really worrying bit?
Once Cam is in No 10 - once he's Seen The Books - he'll have to decide whether he can risk telling us the truth without us turning on him. And judging by the evidence to date, you'd have say that's a longshot.
Instead, we'll get an update of the preposterous PBR, slightly tweaked in the direction of reality, and with slightly more information on spending. But it won't be the unvarnished truth. We won't get that until we run into the inevitable sterling/gilt market crisis and the IMF pitches up on the redeye from Washington.
It will be Obamba Part Deux all over again - yes, it's a fresh new start with me, I'll close Gitmo, and everything will be cool... OMG, you mean these are the secret files... OMG... what should we do? ...we haven't closed Gitmo yet, have we?
Is it black-hearted deception, or simple naivety? You know - if we just whistle to ourselves and carry on as if everything is OK, then maybe something will turn up.
Yeah. That must be it.
Remind me, what's the point of our politicos again?
Saturday, 9 January 2010
The A322
Circle of unreality
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