You can't buck the narrative - by Richard... Wednesday, March 10, 2010

You can't buck the narrative - by Richard... Wednesday, March 10, 2010

There are several things I try to do with this blog. In bringing you a diet of posts each day, one of my aims is to avoid being derivative. My preference is to bring genuine, new or little-known information to the table, or to add fresh thinking or analysis to current topics.

Despite that, there is value in repeating existing material, and spreading the word – and it is done exceedingly well by a large number of blogs. But, in many areas where there is a narrative up and running, it is either wrong or heavily distorted, either by act or omission. In this case, mere repetition or commentary which takes the baseline facts as read simply perpetuates the errors and the distortions, helping to lock in the narrative to the point where it achieves the aura of truth, irrespective of the actual facts.

No more so is this the case than with the Snatch Land Rover, an earlier preoccupation of this blog, and in particular the reports attendant on the coroner's inquest on the death of Cpl Sarah Bryant and her three colleagues in Afghanistan in June 2008.

The basic facts of this incident are not disputed and are well established. On 17 June 2008, Bryant and four other soldiers were riding in a Snatch Land Rover which impacted a pressure plate IED. It was blown apart killing four, including Bryant, and seriously injuring one other. By common consent, the Snatch Land Rover did not provide adequate protection and, had they been better equipped, the soldiers might have survived.

What is in dispute – or should be - however, is a claim that has become a central part of the narrative, a classic example of which is here, but one that is repeated endlessly. This is that the reason for the wholly unsuitable Snatch Land Rovers being in theatre was due to a shortage of funds and a refusal by former chancellor and now prime minister Gordon Brown to permit the purchase of replacements. We hold no brief for Mr Brown, none at all, but this narrative is wrong, wholly and completely wrong – and dangerously so. 

That said, I do not intend to rehearse all the details as to why it is wrong. I have already done that in my book Ministry of Defeat, a book well-known in military, political and media circles, and strenuously and quite deliberately ignored because it contradicts the narrative and tells people what they do not want to know.

The same story, is told in even more detail in hundreds of posts in my much-neglected sister blog, Defence of the Realm, a blog I have largely abandoned because – as I have found to my cost – there is little value in telling people things they do not want to know, when they prefer the prevailing narrative. Nevertheless, the whole story is there and will remain so, mute testament to the power of the narrative, for the very few who are interested. 

A good place to start would be with seven linked posts, taken from my book under the generic heading "Lost before it started". The links are here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6and Part 7.

Viewing the disgusting performance of David Cameron during today's PMQs, however – when he sought to make political capital out of the "narrative" on the backs of fallen soldiers (matched only by the performance of Mr Brown), it is necessary to remind readers of the last chapter of the story, which led to that Snatch Land Rover down the path to destruction.

The story was set out in a DOTR post here in November 2008, with further elaboration here. The essence of the story is that a batch of protected vehicles – the Australian Bushmaster – had already been ordered and could easily have been in theatre at the time to replace the Snatches, and which could well have saved Sarah Bryant and her colleagues' lives.

From this, several crucial points emerge. The first is that, even at this late stage, funding was not an issue. The cash had been allocated, the vehicles selected and the purchase approved. Why they were not then in theatre is a question for the Army, not ministers, to answer.

Secondly, even at that time, the Conservatives knew all about this transaction. They knew because I told them – giving them a full verbal briefing - and sent a full dossier down to their defence team, with all the supporting data. 

Then, as now, they had all the information they needed to know that this episode – and indeed the run-up – was nothing to do with cash shortages. It was everything to do with a sequence of mistakes and incompetence by senior Army officers and civil servants, all of whom are currently covering their backs, using the narrative – not least in testimony to the Chilcot Inquiry – to hide their tracks.

Despite this, the Conservative chose – quite deliberately – to run with the narrative. That was not because it was the truth. They knew it was not. Simply, that was the politically convenient "attack strategy" which offered the most promise and the best prospects of short-term political advantage.

Out of the limelight, however, Ann Winterton, myself and others, have been painstakingly teasing out the truth, ignored by the political claque and the media, because it does not fit the narrative. 

Worse still, that applies to the media. The "Bushmaster" dossier has been placed before innumerable journalists and even very recently, a senior journalist from a major broadcasting organisation checked out the information. It stood up and yesterday I was asked to give a recorded interview for television news. The footage was not used. It ran counter to the narrative. Others don't even begin to see the point and have never tried.

Yet, the information is there. The information about the Vector is also there – the vehicle that the Army chose as the replacement for the Snatch, at a cost of £200 million – a vehicle that was so dangerous and so mechanically unreliable that it had to be replaced ... by the Snatch. 

Then there is the saga of the Panther, with 401 ordered in 2001 at a cost of £166 million whichthen required an additional £20 million to get 67 into theatre, eight years after they had been first ordered. No wonder the Army was short of money and vehicles.

But the Conservatives knew all that. Many journalists also knew what was going on, but chose to ignore it. The ever-staunch Booker has retailed many of the details in his column, not only for them to be ignored but censored as well. You want "powerful vested interests", look at the arms industry. There is, it seems, no way of bucking the narrative. People will believe what they want to believe – and suppress the rest.

In conclusion, I have to admit I am soured and not a little embittered by this process. When I first heard about the death of Sarah Bryant and her colleagues, I was in Paris, sitting in the shade of an armoured personnel carrier, eating an agreeable steak dinner, discussing Army requirements with a galaxy of senior personnel.

From this and other sources – some at an unbelievably senior level who have fed this blog with material most political journalists would die for – I have come to learn a great deal about the inner workings of Whitehall and the machinations of Army politics. I know what I'm talking about, and information last seen with "secret" plastered over it has found its way into DOTR. But that has been to no avail. The narrative prevails.

It actually makes writing DOTR an exercise in futility. Having neglected it for some time, I am now minded to wrap it up. I owe myself one more post, though – which has been months in the writing – on why the military adventure in Afghanistan will fail, can only fail and will lead to our eventual ignominious departure, carefully spun as a victory. That I have decided, when I get round to it, will be my swan song on that blog.

COMMENT THREAD

Print ready

It's started - by Richard...

Recognising a bargain when they see it, the investment firm Low Carbon Accelerator (LCA) has invested £500,000 in wind and solar power project developer Vigor Renewables in order to cash-in on UK feed-in tariffs (FITs).

Vigor, we are told, is a new company formed to take advantage of changes to UK FITs, which aims to partner with land-owners, as well as commercial property owners and managers, to build and operate renewable power generating assets across the UK.

Each of the solar and wind energy sites they build will be designed to qualify for the FITs which come into effect in the UK on 1 April 2010 and "guarantee an inflation linked income for sub-5MW renewable energy projects." For solar projects, the incentives are available for 25 years and for wind 20 years.

In an unfortunate turn of phrase, Vigor managing director Oliver Hughes says the FIT has created a "wealth of opportunity" for renewable energy developers in the UK. "We are pleased that LCA, as a pioneer in clean-tech investment, has recognised this opportunity and the return potential for investors and for property and land-owners," Hughes said.

So it starts ... the pigs rush to the trough, scooping up the cash by the handfuls. They would be mad not to do so. The government has devised an utterly mad system designed to put £8.6 billon a year into the kitty, available for anyone able to afford the initial investment. AND THE REST OF US PAY.

This one, like so many, has crept in under the radar, a perverted, distorted reverse Robin Hood scheme where the poor are robbed to give to the rich. And even with today's debauched currency, £8 billion plus A YEAR is a lot of money – you could build four aircraft carriers a year with that, every year.

This is money which is going to be siphoned out of our pockets, all to produce electricity in one of the least efficient and most expensive ways known to man. On our backs, will arise a vast, bloated "green" industry, milking the poor and the less-well-off, just to pay homage to a mad obsession. In Zimbabwe, runaway inflation produced scenes such as the one shown. If you see something similar in Britain, you are looking at a solar energy developer.

AND IT IS OUR MONEY.

CLIMATE CHANGE – END GAME

Print ready

A multiple of insanity - by Richard...

Moonbat's spat over feed-in tariffs continues with a repost from his nemesis, Jeremy Leggett, defender of the solar industry.

For once, though, we are completely on Moonbat's side. Only now is the enormity of the government's proposal beginning to sink in, with its intention to have a full two percent of UK electricity supplied from micro-generation by 2020. This will largely be delivered by solar panels, the most profitable option for small installations.

Actually, solar panels are one of the least cost-effective ways of producing electricity, costing £4,000-6,000 per kilowatt of installed capacity. Without massive government support, payback times (with interest) could be a hundred years or more to recoup the typical installation costs of between £3,000 and £20,000. Given that the devices have a maximum lifetime of 30 years, that would never have happened.

However, from 1 April, the government is offering 41.3p per kWh produced – a supposed "feed-in" tariff although it is paid even if the owner uses all the electricity produced. From this, it estimates that a typical 2.5kW well sited installation could earn £900 a year and save £140 a year on the electricity not used – the subsidies calculated to give a 5-8 percent return on investment. 

The income from the electricity sales is not taxed so, for a higher bracket taxpayer – who would have to pay for the electricity out of earned income, the payback time can be reduced to as little as 15 years. By 2020, however, the government estimates that the subsidy – paid by electricity users – will be costing £8.6 billion annually. Since only the better off will be able to afford the installation costs, this amounts to a massive transfer of wealth from the poor to those fortunate enough to be able to buy the equipment.

To get to this state, the number of installations, currently approximately 100,000 and, up from an estimated 82,000 at the end of 2004, will need to increase to something like 7-10 million. And, as a rough estimate, the capital cost could be in the region of £100 billion – for two percent of our electricity production – with which we could buy 100 percent of our requirement in the form of brand new nuclear power stations.

It is this capital expenditure which will be defrayed by the feed-in tariff, replacing a composite scheme which included installation grants. 

There was an inkling of how profitable solar was becoming last year when Guardian journalist Ashley Seager spent £8,500 on solar roof panels (having got a 50 percent grant for a system that cost £17,500) and claimed the experience to be financially rewarding.

That was before the government's feed-in tariff came into force and, when it does the owners will be able to sell all the electricity they produce at 41.3p per kWh, even if they use it all themselves.

Just how insane this really is can be seen from a similar scheme introduced in Germany in 2004 – with a 57.4 euro cent/kWh subsidy for domestic users. This pushed solar power capacity to about 9GW, delivering about 1.35 GW, or about one percent of total German production - including some massive industrial installations, which get a slightly lower subsidy rate.

But the cost has been massive. German electricity consumers last year paid more than £10 billion in subsidies, forcing chancellor Merkel to cut the tariff by 15 percent this month, with more cuts in the pipeline.

With the UK feed-in tariff – and other tax incentives – solar panels are now a good investment for anyone who can afford them, which means that there will almost certainly be a massive uptake. The government may well reach its 2020 target of two percent but the rest of us will be paying dearly for the privilege. 

Even allowing for a low end installation cost of £4,000 per kW installed, the load capacity of domestic panels in the UK rarely exceeds 10 percent. This means that the 2GW needed by 2020 to make up 2 percent of our electrical production would still cost in the region of £80 billion. At this rate, no wonder Merkel finds the subsidies unaffordable. And yet, David Cameron wants not 2 but 15 percent, jacking up capital costs to a potential £600 billion.

If the current scheme is already insane, what the Tories are proposing is a multiple of insanity. And we can afford neither.

CLIMATE CHANGE – END GAME

Print ready

They are serious - by Richard... Tuesday, March 09, 2010

An article in the Western Mail gives a clue as to what is going on.

Under the heading, "House cattle – or we will have to sharply cut herds", we learn of recommendations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from farming by permanently housing cattle, delivered to the Welsh rural affairs minister Elin Jones. They come from the Land Use Climate Change Group, established last year "to consider how agriculture and land use can reduce greenhouse gases and adapt to climate change."

The Welsh Assembly Government has saddled itself with a target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent by the year 2040 and, having virtually destroyed any productive industry in the province, the government is casting around for ways of making this madness happen.

Up pops Professor Gareth Wyn Jones, who chaired the Land Use Climate Change Group, obligingly offering a "road map" to help them on their way to complete their economic suicide – in a region where the majority of the working-age population is either employed by the state or on benefits.

Jones is picking on probably the only productive enterprise left in Wales, proposing "a range of initiatives" including the introduction of anaerobic digestion to reduce methane emissions, improving farm productivity, including more efficient use of manure, fertilisers and energy, expanding woodlands and developing renewable energy sources.

His emphasis, however, is on maintaining intensive dairy, sheep and beef farming while diversifying and increasing vegetable crops. In the longer term, he recommends developing a more radical approach where much of the cattle herd is housed and methane emissions are captured.

In shroud-waving mode, Wyn Jones warns: "If we don't go down this road you are really into the scenario where people will say we have got to get rid of 60 to 70 percent of our animals and move away from livestock farming completely."

There is, of course, a delicious irony here, with the "green" agenda now pushing intensive animal husbandry as a means of saving the planet, putting the global warming alarmists on a collision course with the open-toed sandaled organic brigade which wants their animals au naturel.

The trouble is that the "planet savers" are serious. They have latched onto methane emissions from farming – arguing that the gas is 20-times more potent than CO2 – and onto nitrous oxide, which is approximately 250 to 300 times more "effective" as a greenhouse gas than CO2.

Of course, the current enthusiasm for this issue may have something to do with Welsh universities being awarded £4 million last year to set up the Climate Change Consortium of Wales, aiming to build their fund to £10.2 million over five years.

But, as we noted yesterday, agriculture seems to be becoming the new target for the warmists, who are looking for a quick fix to kickstart their efforts to meet emission targets.

Even Rajendra Pachauri's private cash machine, TERI, is getting in the act, last year hosting a "workshop" in Delhi on methane reduction, managing to extract a $100,000 grant from the US Environmental Protection Agency to finance it.

Methane, it seems, is the new poster child, hence Geoffrey Lean's recent hyperventilation. And, although he gets a hard time from the comments, the money stacking up behind this obsession suggests that the warmists are not going to let go of it any time soon.

The only minor problem is that they are also set to stack up costs to such an extent that food - like energy - is likely to become an unaffordable luxury for an increasing proportion of the world's population.

CLIMATE CHANGE – END GAME

Print ready

Not over by Christmas - by Richard...

One baulks slightly at the dire Connie Hedegaard, EU commissioner on climate change, being called a "climate chief", although that rather puts her in the same league as Rajendra Pachauri – and that hasn't done him a great deal of good.

Anyhow, said "chief", according to the Financial Times and sundry others, is playing down the prospects of it brokering a new, all embracing climate treaty at the global conference this December in Mexico. Given the general incompetence of the EU in everything it touches, it is comforting to see this institution recognising its own limitations, although the obduracy of India and China might have something to do with the pessimism.

Hedegaard is being remarkably candid on this issue – not that she has much choice. "To get every detail set in the next nine months looks very difficult," she said. "Europe would love that to happen, and I would love that to happen . ... but my feeling is that it is going to be very difficult to get a treaty."

Her pessimism is shared by the outgoing Yvo de Boer, but far more important is German chancellor Angela Merkel. Wholly in tune with the mood music, she too is downplaying the prospects. But she is actually going further, expressing doubts that a new deal can be made in time to replace Kyoto by the time it runs out in 2012.

With Obama's "cap 'n' fade" running into problems and the Aussies having little local difficulties with their attempts to commit economic suicide, things are not looking too good for the warmists. However, their Lemming-like tendencies are not to be under-rated and they may yet pull something out of the bag ... even if the occasional one is wearing a lifebelt.

CLIMATE CHANGE – END GAME

Print ready

Jobs for the boys (and girls) - by Richard...

Climate Change Coordinator. Location: Camden, London, £22,797 to £23,997. 

For over 70 years Plan has been working with the world's poorest children, families and communities. Today, child centred community development is at the heart of our programmes with 11 million children in 48 developing countries. We are currently recruiting for a Climate Change Coordinator (fixed term contract to 31 January 2013) whose role will be to coordinate the implementation of a three year EC-funded project on climate change involving schools, youth groups and partner organisations in six countries (UK, Netherlands, Bulgaria, Kenya, Malawi and Senegal). This exciting new project is aimed at increasing public awareness of the links between climate change, poverty and child rights, and engaging ...

Green jobs anyone?