What What do do you you think? think?
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services reaching dangerous levels. So if you don’t feel as safe living in the UK as you would like, crime figures are another catalyst for further worry. A desperate lack of social housing and a general shortage of new homes is causing house prices and private rentals to soar at an unhealthy rate, to levels beyond the affordability for most.
Public transport is inadequate, outside of London, with rail and bus services failing to provide a ‘joined up’ facility. Council taxes rise annually and do not represent good value for money.
Soaring energy costs make some basic life choices very difficult for many, and some vital climate change initiatives risk being ignored.
Forecasts for trade post-Brexit, and the lack of foreign labour, are being played down, as there is no “turning back”. Having Rees-Mogg as the new dynamic ambassador to negotiate positive change to promised pre-referendum hyperbole is hardly inspiring. Some break-up in the Union is now becoming a lot more of a reality, due to the Irish situation, and the dominance of the SNP in Scotland.
We have an ongoing fiasco surrounding the Johnson premiership, as he constantly lies his way temporarily out of one crisis to the next, using slogans, loud fanciful promises, but effecting poor and shallow performance, and it is evident for all but the sheep to see.
“Empty vessels make the most noise”. His Cabinet and ministers are in place for their blind support, not their talent and inspiration. Without the ‘payroll support’, Johnson would no doubt have lost the vote of confidence.
This must surely all have to change very soon as ‘levelling up’ appears to be ‘levelling down’. There is, of course, no silver bullet and it would be unfair and unreasonable to suggest that any of the other single political parties have all the answers.
Is it the time to consider a new style of proportional representation system that just might stand the chance of pooling the very best cross-party talent in a coalition government, to work for the general good of the UK and all its inhabitants?
Geoffrey Turner Hewish, Somerset back on energy-saving programmes, reducing the incentive for energy saving since it came to power in 2008. I have such systems on my house and my bills are a fraction of what my neighbours pay. I paid for them privately and after 11 years they paid for themselves in savings, and will continue to save money for me and for my children long after I am dead.
Not everyone can afford to lay out the thousands of pounds for such systems, but the Government can.
A solar hot water system costs about £4,000 to £5,000 to retrofit. There are 27 million domestic households in the UK; about 10 million would be suitable for such rooftop SHW systems, saving about 30% on their domestic energy consumption. A well-insulated house can save a further 15%, about a thousand pounds a year in total.
Boris Johnson and Kwasi Kwarteng want to buy eight more nuclear power stations from the French and Chinese at a cost of £20 billion each. Well, interestingly, the cost of two nuclear power stations (£40 billion) is sufficient to retrofit every suitable household in the land with comprehensive energy-saving measures for free!
So rather than try and save households money on rising energy costs long term, they just build more expensive power stations!
This Government throws our money in every single direction except where it can do most good with ordinary citizens and householders, saving them money year on year and cutting our use of fossil fuels at the same time.
This subsidy is essentially a bribe to the public to hopefully tide the