No respect for rules as UK becomes a pariah

WHAT do you call a man who thinks rules are for other people? Boris Johnson.

On the same day as police issue a further 50 fines for illegal lockdown parties in Downing Street, Johnson’s government is threatening to go back on an international agreement on Northern Ireland that he himself negotiated and signed. The same Brexit deal he trumpeted as being done and “oven-ready” when asking for our votes in 2019.

This shames our country.

We urge dictators like Putin to respect international rules and then behave like this.

Britain is fast becoming a pariah state, torn apart by the harsh

realities of Brexit and this reckless government of gangsters.

Kevin Sullivan Swansea

(c) Changing the subject – Swansea is hoping to become a “freeport” to make trade easier for imports etc. This was hailed as hopeful ‘good news’. Hopefully it will be so. That being so, it can be presumed it will attract more shipping to our docks. If not, then what’s all the hoo-hah hype fuss about? Let’s hope it does increase shipping. That being so – have you questioned the bizarre logic in siting a floating mass of 72,000 square metres of solar panels on most of Queen’s Dock to obstruct any expansion of shipping there for 25 years despite its little use these days? Or is it a move to deindustrialise our docks if the Blue Eden-promised 5,000 new houses are to be next door? Have you questioned that?

(d) Have you checked the situation in the USA over a similar battery factory as proposed for Swansea in Blue Eden? Is one up and running there? Or is it only at the draft drawing-board stage? Will its process be so labour intensive that it will employ 2,500 as claimed?

(e) Will the battery factory use Neath Valley anthracite coal as a substitute for graphite anodes in the batteries? Why did the Senedd Member for Llanelli try to close that mine recently? Have you questioned all this?

(f ) Have you asked where all the hydrogen is to come from for Labour’s ferry boat and everything else? Hydrogen is abundant, but it does not exist in a free state on our planet. Have you checked the strengths of its molecular bonds in all the compounds it exists in eg water? Have you checked the energy equations – needed to split these compounds and then the return energy when that hydrogen is burnt as a fuel or as a reductant in a steelworks blast furnace? All this information is easily available. Have you questioned it?

(g) Did you know that nearly all renewable energy developers and producers always quote their outputs as the maximum possible in the most favourable of solar and wind conditions? Have you questioned these figures? To save you time I will tell you – for wind it is only 25% effective on average and for solar it is only 10% effective on average. Despite that our press and media and developers nearly always quote the 100% figures.

Remember, “I am a fool and a fool asks questions. Those who do not ask questions are the biggest fools ever.”

Ioan Richard Swansea