The two party system
- Thread starter trojan698
- Start date
No point, without a massive overhaul of government in general.
Would like to see separation of local and central government entirely. That way you wouldn't need Boundries for central government. But along with that strong constitution on what central government can and can't do. Further devolve powers to local councils, again another decent torie policy, just doesn't go anywhere near far enough.
Apart from a handful of subpoints, their policy on schooling is awful.
A terrible idea, especially given the overall fiscal tightening.
Good, but offset by the fact that their policies overall have hit the poor hardest.
Are generally awful.
Given that the alternative offered was to use one of Clegg's few moments of clarity "a miserable little compromise". Yes, I think it was a farce.
The yes campaign wasn't as bad. He said, damning with faint praise.
Either way, there's no doubt the no campaign was more effectively fought. The failure of the Yes campaign to either explain the vote, or push the actual advantages of AV until late in the day instead preferring to try and sell highly questionable claims was doomed when faced with the money and vitriol of the No campaign.
It was doomed from the start, AV is rubbish, no one wanted it. Not even the yes campaign. Wasn't as bad, pull another one and take the blinkers off.
It was an utter waste of money and the campaign should not have accepted the deal, it did far more harm for them.
Yeah, it's hard to get excited about a miserable little compromise. I'd have still rather AV had won since it was a slight improvement over the current system but it really offered very little compared and was a country mile from anything resembling a genuinely proportional system.
I maintain that the 'Yes' campaign was less dishonest than the 'No' campaign but, tbh, I really can't be flipped to argue over it.
They aren't.
The only reason there are solar panels in the UK is because they are massively subsidised (FIT, ROC, etc). They are not viable here. They are just a very expensive way to buy votes from people who don't understand. In addition to not being viable themselves because they're too expensive, they increase the costs of the national grid too. Of course, all this extra cost ends up on everyone's electricity bills.
What rubbish. Even without fit they are viable. Fit has made people invest and bring down the costs.
Even without fit you will make your money back, just not much more, as its around ~20years but depends on a multitude of variables.
Edit- not even close to 18years now.
4kw system is now around 6.5k (can get it even cheaper if you shop around) and will save you at least 500 a year if not around 700
And if we look at energy and carbon payback
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Do you even know what ROC is?
You also ignored what I had written, which I expected from advocates. I was talking about costs to the energy companies, which of course they pass on to customers. You replied with a dubious point about different costs. Dubious because it's debateable whether solar panels would ever pay for themselves without FIT - would they work at 100% for long enough? Maybe, maybe not.
Even that only works for people who are rich enough to buy them without credit, since interested rates on a loan would push the cost up to vastly more than the value of the electricity generated.
Even for rich enough people, it's still a rather poor idea to drop thousands into an investment scheme that might or might not give you as much as 0% interest after 20 years, maybe, if you're lucky.
So even if you ignore everything apart from FIT and you ignore the added costs to the energy companies of generation(*) and distribution, you're still completely wrong.
* Yes, it does add extra cost. They need to be able to continously alter generation to suit all the solar panels that are out of their control - that adds extra cost to them.
Its not dubiouse at all, it's very easy to work out payback costs and yes they will work for longer enough. Most are guaranteed for 80% after 20years and some are even higher than that for longer.
How am I wrong?
Have cost of panels reduced? Yes they have the schemes aim was to achieve that, it's worked. It's also achieved the aim of getting it accepted in the mids of the public.
Are you totally wrong about pv cells working in the uk, yes you are. They can stand on their own, very easily. With payback times of just slightly over half their expected live.
The grid is getting upgraded anyway, renewable is the future and we are legally bound to it, for reduction in co2 production. The massive offshore windfalls and other installation require a change in infastructure. So it is not just cost from home solar generation.
How am I wrong?
Have cost of panels reduced? Yes they have the schemes aim was to achieve that, it's worked. It's also achieved the aim of getting it accepted in the mids of the public.
Are you totally wrong about pv cells working in the uk, yes you are. They can stand on their own, very easily. With payback times of just slightly over half their expected live.
The grid is getting upgraded anyway, renewable is the future and we are legally bound to it, for reduction in co2 production. The massive offshore windfalls and other installation require a change in infastructure. So it is not just cost from home solar generation.
No, it's not just home solar that imposes a lot of extra cost. That was just the subject in question, so it's what I referred to. It's also the least controllable and therefore the least cost-effective.
Have you learned about ROC yet? Or are you just ignoring it because it's inconvenient?
The costs can be shuffled about to fudge the numbers, but they're still there and they're still being paid by everyone.
Out of interest, what numbers are you deciding on for solar PV in the UK? Cost (for whole systems, not just panels), working life, rate of degradation, insolation and efficiency. I'd like to see (a) if you have any numbers and (b) if so, whether they're realistic. Of course, that still wouldn't take into account the costs of ROC and infrastructure, so it's still not a true accounting of costs.
It's not just a change in infrastructure, although that is a cost in itself. It's the huge overpayments for producing electricity from renewables and the huge payments for not producing electricity (companies are often required to turn renewables generators off because they are surplus to requirements at that point and can't be controlled easily) and the extra cost of varying controllable generators more often to smooth out the peaks and troughs of renewables.
Could the bulk of electricity be generated from renewables? On paper, certainly. In practice, probably, given enough time and money to solve the engineering problems. In some areas, right now. Iceland, for example, with its abundance of geothermal.
Is solar the best solution for a country well north of the equator? No.
Does it cost less than nothing? No.
Does it cost less than conventional generation? No.
Do we need to do it anyway? Yes.
Do we need to falsify the costs? Maybe it's politically useful, but that doesn't mean I have to like it or go along with it.
Have you learned about ROC yet? Or are you just ignoring it because it's inconvenient?
The costs can be shuffled about to fudge the numbers, but they're still there and they're still being paid by everyone.
Out of interest, what numbers are you deciding on for solar PV in the UK? Cost (for whole systems, not just panels), working life, rate of degradation, insolation and efficiency. I'd like to see (a) if you have any numbers and (b) if so, whether they're realistic. Of course, that still wouldn't take into account the costs of ROC and infrastructure, so it's still not a true accounting of costs.
It's not just a change in infrastructure, although that is a cost in itself. It's the huge overpayments for producing electricity from renewables and the huge payments for not producing electricity (companies are often required to turn renewables generators off because they are surplus to requirements at that point and can't be controlled easily) and the extra cost of varying controllable generators more often to smooth out the peaks and troughs of renewables.
Could the bulk of electricity be generated from renewables? On paper, certainly. In practice, probably, given enough time and money to solve the engineering problems. In some areas, right now. Iceland, for example, with its abundance of geothermal.
Is solar the best solution for a country well north of the equator? No.
Does it cost less than nothing? No.
Does it cost less than conventional generation? No.
Do we need to do it anyway? Yes.
Do we need to falsify the costs? Maybe it's politically useful, but that doesn't mean I have to like it or go along with it.
Is this a serious thread or another 'bash the Tories'?
Bashing the Tories is always serious business.
The was never any intention to tax pasties or even introduce any new tax at all, the intention was to clarify current tax law to stop companies like Greggs committing tax avoidance.
It was the media that span it into a tax on pasties, and Greggs themselves because instead or paying the proper amount of tax and having less profit they wanted to charge their customers more to compensate so started accusing the government of taxing pasties so they could trick people into believing that a rise in the cost of pies was the governments fault.
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IMO the main problem we have in this country is that people don't vote for a parties policies or even for the party's leader (though he is more important to votes than the actual policies) they vote based on a parties track record. I.E the Tory's should have won the last election via a landslide as Brown had just bankrupted the country and Clegg although performing well in one TV debate had nothing to offer. However people actually voted to keep Brown because they were still bum hurt over Thatcher's performance 20 years beforehand and as a result we ended up with a coalition that has seriously reduced the Tory's ability to fix Labour's mess.
The country will recover but most likely it will recover just in time for Labour to get voted back in by people sore from all the cuts that had to be made due to Brown/Blairs administration, and then were back to square one.
That's an "interesting" interpretation. There was no clarification of current tax law; there was a closing of an apparent anomaly in VAT law that meant some hot foods attracted VAT whilst others didn't. Oh, and BTW, VAT is - and always has been - a charge placed onto the consumer, Greggs et al. are not unusual in passing it on in this case.
So badly incompetent was the drafting of the initial law that, as written, bread placed in the sun at the front of the store would attract VAT whilst an identical loaf in the shade at the back would not.
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Contradict yourself much? No, don't vote on record but vote Brown out because of his record!