On Friday May 31st Sir Keir Starmer promised that a new Labour government would decarbonise the UK’s electricity system by 2030 and would, at the same time, reduce average energy bills by up to £300 or roughly 20% of their current level.
Your points reinforce my comment that Net Zero is a very expensive insurance policy. I mean this in the very broad sense of a global commitment to Net Zero.
One country alone or even a large group of countries achieving Net Zero is simply a form of consumption. It is like building the Colosseum in the 1st century or cathedrals in the 13th century or Olympic stadiums in the 21st century. All societies spend vast amounts of money on conspicuous consumption and they justify it for many reasons. The issue is who pays and how willingly they pay. In the case of the UK Net Zero is a consumption priority for a portion of the elite and their supporters but they want to make other people pay for their consumption and in so doing are reducing the resources available for other forms of consumption. That is entirely in line with your points about wasted resources and the low EROEI. I would put it a different way, which is that we are greatly reducing the productivity of our capital stock by choosing to invest in very capital intensive and relatively inefficient replacements for fossil fuels.
I find it frustrating that engineers, accountants and economists can easily prove that Net Zero is utterly infeasible but hardly anyone goes for the jugular to say that man-made CO2 global warming is a political fiction based on corrupt science.
Euan Mearns of Energy Matters liked it although he says it comes across as “too angry”. He has joined the CO2 Coalition and is pally with Will Happer. He says he will show it to Happer and discuss if they could maybe use it as the basis for a “less angry” debunking. We’ll see.
As a man of little standing, I beg to differ in the approach of taking on the green blob. We all seem to agree that discussion is futile, the enemy only recognises force. Therefore, attack them by ridiculing the very notion of MMCC & CO2 being a devil gas and just become 'Deniers' on steroids. Let them mock and ridicule us, as they would, but eventually people will begin to wonder if we have a point. For how long have the Al Gore's et al been telling us 'we have five /ten, whatever years to save the planet'? It is demonstrable that little to nothing has actually changed during that time, and what little has, is easily explained away withe the long term graphs and weather records as being aberational. Our argument seems to me to be too cerebral, too intellectual, the general public's eyes glaze over, and it's them we have to convince for pressure to be brought to bear. Perhaps The Donald and Nigel might just be the catalyst for such pressure.
Douglas, I believe this is why you're being turned down:
The overriding objective is to demonstrate to the public and to politicians that it’s necessary to abandon the unachievable, disastrous and pointless net zero policy. And, as it’s possible to make an irrefutable case for that without reference to the science (for example see ** below), it’s best to do just that. Indeed, referring to the science is likely to be a serious unforced error – getting you sucked into the ghastly and mind-numbing world of climate change orthodoxy where debate is not allowed and where you’d be dismissed as a ‘climate denier’ and therefore unworthy of serious attention however cogent your arguments.
I agree. In technical terms it is possible to believe in a very wide range of values for the ECS (Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity) and still conclude that rapid decarbonisation makes little economic sense. Asserting that the ECS=0, i.e. there is no global warming, is indeed a serious unforced error. If pressed, I would adopt the Curry-Lewis estimates of an ECS below or close to 2, but this is neither critical nor the basis of most of the detailed work that I have carried out.
It is much better to regard the issue as a matter of decision-making under uncertainty - i.e. we don't know the value of the ECS but need to decide now how to allocate funds now with the option of making changes in future. Consistently that perspective leads to limited spending on mitigation and rather greater spending on adaptation. Policies like Net Zero are extraordinarily expensive insurance policies against disasters that are never likely to happen. But they have a very large opportunity cost in terms of spending on other desirable social goals. Many economists know that but they are browbeaten by a combination of what it is acceptable to say in polite society and the very strong institutional interests that drive academic funding on climate issues.
All of what you write is highly relevant and it will mean that ultimately, the collectivist Net Zero project will fail. But when will it fail? Will it fail before or after irreparable and irreversible damage is done to the British economy, the British way of life and, last but not least, the British natural environment? The mere dogged pursuance of the Net Zero fantasy is an existential threat to all three and as you rightly say, Labour are determined to believe in several impossible things before breakfast, so pointing out the technical and economic impossibility of achieving grid Net Zero 2030, not to mention reducing customer energy bills in the process, is probably a lost cause, akin to banging one's head against a brick wall. If Labour come to power, they will go ahead anyway. In that context, I sympathise with Doug. The NECESSITY argument for the Net Zero project is still highly relevant and it is being sold to the British public, not on the assumption of a relatively high equilibrium climate sensitivity, which few would understand, but on the basis of supposedly extreme and 'dangerous' weather happening here and now, allegedly caused by climate change. That the public have cottoned on to this scam, this justification for Net Zero climate change mitigation, is evidence that organisations like NZW should give more time for arguments against the 'settled science', whilst of course still devoting considerable energy to debunking the Net Zero fantasy. You only have to observe the recent widespread public cynicism following the announcement from the Met Office that spring and the month of May have been the warmest on record to realise that there is enormous potential for a public kickback against all this nonsense based not just on the observation that Net Zero will be cripplingly expensive and unachievable anyway, but based on scepticism also of the 'settled science' and the absurd claim that we are experiencing a 'climate crisis'.
Professor Hughes, you commented that, “Policies like Net Zero are extraordinarily expensive insurance policies … But they have a very large opportunity cost in terms of spending on other desirable social goals.” But is not the situation much worse than that since Net Zero is replacing the current UK electricity grid with a more expensive and less competent one? …
Net Zero is, in part, replacing a once highly reliable and totally dispatchable electricity generation system with an unreliable, non-dispatchable electricity system based on so-called renewable generators, largely wind turbines. This “renewables” system has to be backed up, as DESNZ has recently admitted, by as much as 50GW of CCGT plant so as to ensure grid reliability at all times.
And as analysis by David Turver (based upon original work by Weissbach et al.) has shown, the energy return on energy invested (or EROEI) of such renewables schemes (using current technology) is inadequate for a modern economy when the dispatchable back-up generators are included in the calculation. https://davidturver.substack.com/p/why-eroei-matters
To make matters worse, energy is not some minor part of the economy. Cheap, reliable energy is the very lifeblood of the economy. Without it everybody is impoverished and industry/commerce is less competitive.
In short, Net Zero is proposing to waste energy (and hence money) on an electricity system that appears to be sustainable but does, in fact, make poorer use of energy than the reliable system it replaces. This is anti-sustainable energy usage (i.e. the economics of the mad house) but it appeals to superficial green sentiments, to rent-seeking investors and, crucially, to very many Western governments and their civil servants. Is this the international version of the Iron Triangle in self-serving action? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_triangle_(US_politics)
A further, very significant opportunity cost of the current generation of “renewables” is their huge footprint, both on land and sea, compared to fossil fuel and nuclear schemes. While the latter two offer electrical power output of about 1,000 MW/km2, wind and solar offer between 2 and 10 MW/km2 i.e. current “renewables” are a hundred times more voracious for land and sea area [Ref. 1].
I conclude that current “renewables” are bad for the economy, bad for the environment, and bad for ordinary people … but they are wonderful for rent-seekers.
Reference
1. J Andrews & N Jelley, “Energy Science”, Oxford, third ed., 2017, page 16.
In my opinion, the proponents of Net Zero are either mad or bad (or both) and trying to influence them with irrefutable technical facts is a waste of time. I’ve been fobbed off by every single politician I’ve dealt with over the last 15 years and more. The globally-coordinated Covid “plandemic” opened my eyes to the evil we are up against.
The scientists who contributed to the recent “Climate: The Movie” documentary did a good job of debunking the UN IPCC’s corrupt climate science but few of the general public will have seen it as it was suppressed by the paid-for MSM. For example, if you search for the title on the website of BBC News and you won’t find anything about it. It has obviously been explicitly excluded, a chicanery which ought to be publicly exposed.
I’ve been campaigning as I have mainly for the sake of my children and grandchildren but as a non-scientific layman (engineering BSc) I think I’ve said all I have to say. Some of the text in my latest paper I wrote about ten years ago! I was only prompted to write it by the White Rose’s writing competition and the release of Climate: The Movie. I’ve now had enough and I fear we will all have to take what is coming to us, unless someone with cojones like Donald Trump comes to the rescue.
Everything you say Douglas may well be true - but I refuse to give up. I derive some comfort BTW from the fact that our new Labour government will find quite soon that it's 'clean' electricity by 2030 is completely unachievable - within months rather than years - and that this will inevitably cast major doubt on the whole policy, not least in the public domain.
Well written article that should appear in every broadsheet and decent TV news channel as it utterly sums up the fantasy world that net zero has become and expose the deceit being heaped on consumers.
Excellent - thank you Gordon. A month on and we have a Labour government, and I intend to do some lobbying, however feeble, and to cite your material. In a number of posts and talks, you have covered well the fallacies of the costs of wind and solar energy. However, the myth of cheap wind and solar persists, and graphs showing falling costs over time are frequently rolled out.
I think it's essential to try to understand why this is now so firmly entrenched and would appreciate your views. Is it based simply on the manufacturing or purchase costs of a wind turbine or photovoltaic panel?
Ideas are extremely "sticky" among policymakers and commentators. The polite excuse is that they are busy, don't read very much and rely heavily on second-hand or consensus opinions. That is why it is called conventional wisdom, even if it is far from "wisdom". They are also lobbied frequently by groups like Renewables UK who have absolutely no interest in admitting anything that would compromise their case.
There is another important contributor to this view. There is a large group of official and semi-official organisations which actively promote the idea the "cheap" renewables using what are called levelized costs. For example, DESNZ in the UK, the Energy Information Administration in the US, the International Energy Agency and International Renewable Energy Agency plus private organisations like Lazard all do this. I am much harsher on such sources - they are incompetent and (sometimes) deliberately dishonest. The dishonesty comes from a clear refusal to learn anything from actual experience and a continued reliance on sources that are patently unreliable. They want to believe the nonsense they put out and don't let the facts get in the way.
The final element is a complete absence of accountability in compiling and disseminating information. I am writing a piece which contrasts the offtake prices that are being paid by US states for offshore wind to be delivered in 2026-27 with the levelized costs published by the EIA & Lazard. The actual prices are 50% to 150% higher than the claimed costs. That is clear, deliberate misrepresentation on the part of both organisations as well as by policymakers who rely upon such claims. There should ways of holding the sources of the claims and those who rely on them personally liable with very large penalties for such misrepresentation. After that is what professional indemnity means! If I am a structural engineer who warrants the safety of a building or a bridge and it falls down, then the consequences may be severe. If these forecasters don't like that they should publish nothing other than actual outcomes and not purported forecasts. This is not unusual - look at the obligations imposed on financial firms and companies when making what are called forward-looking statements.
Thank you for a very comprehensive reply. My fear on behalf of Joe Public is that he wants action on the climate, taken by "them", and is oblivious to the increasing bill coming his way.
I do see an opportunity (and for the record I'm not a party political animal). The Labour "landslide" is not structurally sound. Their victory was in Scotland: their vote share in England was unchanged from 2019 and in Wales it fell. Overall it increased by a mere 1.6% on a low turnout. The F-word is now in parliament and in 90% of constituencies that fell to Labour, Reform were second. They are openly hostile to net-zero and are not renowned for being shrinking violets.
I have been persuaded by facts and rational arguments, including yours, that we are on a path that will fail on all fronts: security, reliability, affordability and carbon emissions. As a younger, cleverer former colleague use to say: "If you attempt the impossible you will fail".
I am not in the business of political forecasting but I have said several times that the new government is set on a course that can only lead to a repetition of the UK in 1976 or France in 1981-82. The expectations and fiscal reality are so far at odds with each other that is bound to go wrong. The pressure will not just come from Reform UK because, unless they are set on suicide, the remaining Conservatives have to decide whether they are going to oppose the costs imposed on households by Net Zero.
Despite what they say becoming more like Liberal Democrats is hardly likely to be a good strategy. I was brought up in Stratford-on-Avon and campaigned for the Liberals (in those days) in that constituency. Losing that seat to the Lib Dems is as clear an indication of how badly wrong things have gone. And incidentally the Lib Dems are even more NIMBY than the Conservatives, so putting wind farms in the Cotswolds will go down even faster than a lead balloon.
Your points reinforce my comment that Net Zero is a very expensive insurance policy. I mean this in the very broad sense of a global commitment to Net Zero.
One country alone or even a large group of countries achieving Net Zero is simply a form of consumption. It is like building the Colosseum in the 1st century or cathedrals in the 13th century or Olympic stadiums in the 21st century. All societies spend vast amounts of money on conspicuous consumption and they justify it for many reasons. The issue is who pays and how willingly they pay. In the case of the UK Net Zero is a consumption priority for a portion of the elite and their supporters but they want to make other people pay for their consumption and in so doing are reducing the resources available for other forms of consumption. That is entirely in line with your points about wasted resources and the low EROEI. I would put it a different way, which is that we are greatly reducing the productivity of our capital stock by choosing to invest in very capital intensive and relatively inefficient replacements for fossil fuels.
True. But you might have told the Pope in 1500 that the sun did not rotate around the earth.
Don’t forget that it is not necessary to decarbonise.
I find it frustrating that engineers, accountants and economists can easily prove that Net Zero is utterly infeasible but hardly anyone goes for the jugular to say that man-made CO2 global warming is a political fiction based on corrupt science.
I had an email exchange recently with Andrew Monford to ask him if NZW could make use of a paper I had written called “Debunking the climate change hoax” but he declined, saying that their strategy is to focus on Net Zero. We’ve been doing that for 15 years and look where it’s got us, as I pointed out this morning on David Turver’s latest: https://open.substack.com/pub/davidturver/p/shonky-reports-from-wonky-wonks?r=8t7a0&utm_campaign=comment-list-share-cta&utm_medium=web&comments=true&commentId=58586353.
My paper is here: https://metatron.substack.com/p/debunking-the-climate-change-hoax.
Euan Mearns of Energy Matters liked it although he says it comes across as “too angry”. He has joined the CO2 Coalition and is pally with Will Happer. He says he will show it to Happer and discuss if they could maybe use it as the basis for a “less angry” debunking. We’ll see.
As a man of little standing, I beg to differ in the approach of taking on the green blob. We all seem to agree that discussion is futile, the enemy only recognises force. Therefore, attack them by ridiculing the very notion of MMCC & CO2 being a devil gas and just become 'Deniers' on steroids. Let them mock and ridicule us, as they would, but eventually people will begin to wonder if we have a point. For how long have the Al Gore's et al been telling us 'we have five /ten, whatever years to save the planet'? It is demonstrable that little to nothing has actually changed during that time, and what little has, is easily explained away withe the long term graphs and weather records as being aberational. Our argument seems to me to be too cerebral, too intellectual, the general public's eyes glaze over, and it's them we have to convince for pressure to be brought to bear. Perhaps The Donald and Nigel might just be the catalyst for such pressure.
Douglas, I believe this is why you're being turned down:
The overriding objective is to demonstrate to the public and to politicians that it’s necessary to abandon the unachievable, disastrous and pointless net zero policy. And, as it’s possible to make an irrefutable case for that without reference to the science (for example see ** below), it’s best to do just that. Indeed, referring to the science is likely to be a serious unforced error – getting you sucked into the ghastly and mind-numbing world of climate change orthodoxy where debate is not allowed and where you’d be dismissed as a ‘climate denier’ and therefore unworthy of serious attention however cogent your arguments.
**https://cliscep.com/2024/06/08/the-case-against-net-zero-a-third-update/
I agree. In technical terms it is possible to believe in a very wide range of values for the ECS (Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity) and still conclude that rapid decarbonisation makes little economic sense. Asserting that the ECS=0, i.e. there is no global warming, is indeed a serious unforced error. If pressed, I would adopt the Curry-Lewis estimates of an ECS below or close to 2, but this is neither critical nor the basis of most of the detailed work that I have carried out.
It is much better to regard the issue as a matter of decision-making under uncertainty - i.e. we don't know the value of the ECS but need to decide now how to allocate funds now with the option of making changes in future. Consistently that perspective leads to limited spending on mitigation and rather greater spending on adaptation. Policies like Net Zero are extraordinarily expensive insurance policies against disasters that are never likely to happen. But they have a very large opportunity cost in terms of spending on other desirable social goals. Many economists know that but they are browbeaten by a combination of what it is acceptable to say in polite society and the very strong institutional interests that drive academic funding on climate issues.
All of what you write is highly relevant and it will mean that ultimately, the collectivist Net Zero project will fail. But when will it fail? Will it fail before or after irreparable and irreversible damage is done to the British economy, the British way of life and, last but not least, the British natural environment? The mere dogged pursuance of the Net Zero fantasy is an existential threat to all three and as you rightly say, Labour are determined to believe in several impossible things before breakfast, so pointing out the technical and economic impossibility of achieving grid Net Zero 2030, not to mention reducing customer energy bills in the process, is probably a lost cause, akin to banging one's head against a brick wall. If Labour come to power, they will go ahead anyway. In that context, I sympathise with Doug. The NECESSITY argument for the Net Zero project is still highly relevant and it is being sold to the British public, not on the assumption of a relatively high equilibrium climate sensitivity, which few would understand, but on the basis of supposedly extreme and 'dangerous' weather happening here and now, allegedly caused by climate change. That the public have cottoned on to this scam, this justification for Net Zero climate change mitigation, is evidence that organisations like NZW should give more time for arguments against the 'settled science', whilst of course still devoting considerable energy to debunking the Net Zero fantasy. You only have to observe the recent widespread public cynicism following the announcement from the Met Office that spring and the month of May have been the warmest on record to realise that there is enormous potential for a public kickback against all this nonsense based not just on the observation that Net Zero will be cripplingly expensive and unachievable anyway, but based on scepticism also of the 'settled science' and the absurd claim that we are experiencing a 'climate crisis'.
Professor Hughes, you commented that, “Policies like Net Zero are extraordinarily expensive insurance policies … But they have a very large opportunity cost in terms of spending on other desirable social goals.” But is not the situation much worse than that since Net Zero is replacing the current UK electricity grid with a more expensive and less competent one? …
Net Zero is, in part, replacing a once highly reliable and totally dispatchable electricity generation system with an unreliable, non-dispatchable electricity system based on so-called renewable generators, largely wind turbines. This “renewables” system has to be backed up, as DESNZ has recently admitted, by as much as 50GW of CCGT plant so as to ensure grid reliability at all times.
And as analysis by David Turver (based upon original work by Weissbach et al.) has shown, the energy return on energy invested (or EROEI) of such renewables schemes (using current technology) is inadequate for a modern economy when the dispatchable back-up generators are included in the calculation. https://davidturver.substack.com/p/why-eroei-matters
To make matters worse, energy is not some minor part of the economy. Cheap, reliable energy is the very lifeblood of the economy. Without it everybody is impoverished and industry/commerce is less competitive.
In short, Net Zero is proposing to waste energy (and hence money) on an electricity system that appears to be sustainable but does, in fact, make poorer use of energy than the reliable system it replaces. This is anti-sustainable energy usage (i.e. the economics of the mad house) but it appeals to superficial green sentiments, to rent-seeking investors and, crucially, to very many Western governments and their civil servants. Is this the international version of the Iron Triangle in self-serving action? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_triangle_(US_politics)
A further, very significant opportunity cost of the current generation of “renewables” is their huge footprint, both on land and sea, compared to fossil fuel and nuclear schemes. While the latter two offer electrical power output of about 1,000 MW/km2, wind and solar offer between 2 and 10 MW/km2 i.e. current “renewables” are a hundred times more voracious for land and sea area [Ref. 1].
I conclude that current “renewables” are bad for the economy, bad for the environment, and bad for ordinary people … but they are wonderful for rent-seekers.
Reference
1. J Andrews & N Jelley, “Energy Science”, Oxford, third ed., 2017, page 16.
Regards, John Cullen.
Thanks Gordon. Incidentally, I qualified as a barrister many years ago - but I've yet to see any visions 'not granted to mere mortals'.
In my opinion, the proponents of Net Zero are either mad or bad (or both) and trying to influence them with irrefutable technical facts is a waste of time. I’ve been fobbed off by every single politician I’ve dealt with over the last 15 years and more. The globally-coordinated Covid “plandemic” opened my eyes to the evil we are up against.
The scientists who contributed to the recent “Climate: The Movie” documentary did a good job of debunking the UN IPCC’s corrupt climate science but few of the general public will have seen it as it was suppressed by the paid-for MSM. For example, if you search for the title on the website of BBC News and you won’t find anything about it. It has obviously been explicitly excluded, a chicanery which ought to be publicly exposed.
I agree with US physicist John Droz who says that we are losing the climate change war. He is trying to gain traction on a “strategic PR pivot” alternative approach, see https://criticallythinking.substack.com/p/its-time-to-make-a-strategic-pr-pivot.
I’ve been campaigning as I have mainly for the sake of my children and grandchildren but as a non-scientific layman (engineering BSc) I think I’ve said all I have to say. Some of the text in my latest paper I wrote about ten years ago! I was only prompted to write it by the White Rose’s writing competition and the release of Climate: The Movie. I’ve now had enough and I fear we will all have to take what is coming to us, unless someone with cojones like Donald Trump comes to the rescue.
Everything you say Douglas may well be true - but I refuse to give up. I derive some comfort BTW from the fact that our new Labour government will find quite soon that it's 'clean' electricity by 2030 is completely unachievable - within months rather than years - and that this will inevitably cast major doubt on the whole policy, not least in the public domain.
Well written article that should appear in every broadsheet and decent TV news channel as it utterly sums up the fantasy world that net zero has become and expose the deceit being heaped on consumers.
Excellent - thank you Gordon. A month on and we have a Labour government, and I intend to do some lobbying, however feeble, and to cite your material. In a number of posts and talks, you have covered well the fallacies of the costs of wind and solar energy. However, the myth of cheap wind and solar persists, and graphs showing falling costs over time are frequently rolled out.
I think it's essential to try to understand why this is now so firmly entrenched and would appreciate your views. Is it based simply on the manufacturing or purchase costs of a wind turbine or photovoltaic panel?
Ideas are extremely "sticky" among policymakers and commentators. The polite excuse is that they are busy, don't read very much and rely heavily on second-hand or consensus opinions. That is why it is called conventional wisdom, even if it is far from "wisdom". They are also lobbied frequently by groups like Renewables UK who have absolutely no interest in admitting anything that would compromise their case.
There is another important contributor to this view. There is a large group of official and semi-official organisations which actively promote the idea the "cheap" renewables using what are called levelized costs. For example, DESNZ in the UK, the Energy Information Administration in the US, the International Energy Agency and International Renewable Energy Agency plus private organisations like Lazard all do this. I am much harsher on such sources - they are incompetent and (sometimes) deliberately dishonest. The dishonesty comes from a clear refusal to learn anything from actual experience and a continued reliance on sources that are patently unreliable. They want to believe the nonsense they put out and don't let the facts get in the way.
The final element is a complete absence of accountability in compiling and disseminating information. I am writing a piece which contrasts the offtake prices that are being paid by US states for offshore wind to be delivered in 2026-27 with the levelized costs published by the EIA & Lazard. The actual prices are 50% to 150% higher than the claimed costs. That is clear, deliberate misrepresentation on the part of both organisations as well as by policymakers who rely upon such claims. There should ways of holding the sources of the claims and those who rely on them personally liable with very large penalties for such misrepresentation. After that is what professional indemnity means! If I am a structural engineer who warrants the safety of a building or a bridge and it falls down, then the consequences may be severe. If these forecasters don't like that they should publish nothing other than actual outcomes and not purported forecasts. This is not unusual - look at the obligations imposed on financial firms and companies when making what are called forward-looking statements.
Thank you for a very comprehensive reply. My fear on behalf of Joe Public is that he wants action on the climate, taken by "them", and is oblivious to the increasing bill coming his way.
I do see an opportunity (and for the record I'm not a party political animal). The Labour "landslide" is not structurally sound. Their victory was in Scotland: their vote share in England was unchanged from 2019 and in Wales it fell. Overall it increased by a mere 1.6% on a low turnout. The F-word is now in parliament and in 90% of constituencies that fell to Labour, Reform were second. They are openly hostile to net-zero and are not renowned for being shrinking violets.
I have been persuaded by facts and rational arguments, including yours, that we are on a path that will fail on all fronts: security, reliability, affordability and carbon emissions. As a younger, cleverer former colleague use to say: "If you attempt the impossible you will fail".
Thank you again for your response.
I am not in the business of political forecasting but I have said several times that the new government is set on a course that can only lead to a repetition of the UK in 1976 or France in 1981-82. The expectations and fiscal reality are so far at odds with each other that is bound to go wrong. The pressure will not just come from Reform UK because, unless they are set on suicide, the remaining Conservatives have to decide whether they are going to oppose the costs imposed on households by Net Zero.
Despite what they say becoming more like Liberal Democrats is hardly likely to be a good strategy. I was brought up in Stratford-on-Avon and campaigned for the Liberals (in those days) in that constituency. Losing that seat to the Lib Dems is as clear an indication of how badly wrong things have gone. And incidentally the Lib Dems are even more NIMBY than the Conservatives, so putting wind farms in the Cotswolds will go down even faster than a lead balloon.