The secret targeted Tory ads they don't want you to see

All of the major political parties use Facebook to target adverts at certain demographics (like people who hate wind farms for example), but ever since Facebook voluntarily brought in new rules to force political advertisers to log the ads they've been sending out, we've had the ability to look through the stuff they're sending out.

In the Brecon and Radnorshire by-election they sent out this sponsored advert declaring "No New Wind Farms - Vote Conservative".

You can see this advert registered in the Facebook Ad Library (you need to scroll down a few rows to see it, because Facebook doesn't allow you to link to a specific ad for some reason).

The advert was clearly only intended for the consumption of a certain demographic the Tories have identified as people who dislike wind farms, mainly women over the age of 44 for some reason.

This anti-environmental advert was obviously never intended for mass public consumption, because it clashes so glaringly with all of their "greenwash" about caring for the environment, which even goes as far as pinching EU anti-plastic pollution policies that were opposed in the European parliament by Tory MEPs to present them as Tory innovations!

So it would obviously be a terrible shame for the Tory party if people widely shared this article detailing what they're sending out to particular demographics when they think nobody else is looking wouldn't it?

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OR

Enrage the Chinese or shaft the British public?

As one of the most inept Prime Ministers in living memory David Cameron has left an awful lot of toxic legacies behind for his successors to deal with (rising inequality, six years of economically ruinous austerity, re-inflation of the household debt bubble, savage local government cuts, his failed Brexit gamble ...) 

One of Cameron's absolute worst legacies is the shambolic rip-off nuclear power price-fixing deal that he and George Osborne cooked up with the French and Chinese.

There are all sorts of factors that make Cameron and Osborne's deal an absolute catastrophe for Britain. One of the main objections is the fact that the deal to get France and China to build the Hinkley Point C nuclear power station for us comes with the huge bribe of a guaranteed £92.50 per MWh of electricity for 35 years. This figure will rise with inflation for throughout the contract. When the global costs of renewable energy sources are in sustained decline, it's economically suicidal to lock yourself into a rip-off 35 year contract to pay way over the odds for electricity, but that's precisely what Cameron an Osborne did.

The rip-off deal is so bad that George Osborne's own father-in-law David Howell described it as "one of the worst deals ever" for British energy consumers and businesses.

The hopeless chancers Cameron and Osborne left Theresa May in an impossible lose-lose situation.

She either had to enrage the Chinese by backing out of the deal (a risky move when the Brexit vote has put the UK in such a weak position on the geopolitical stage) or she had to completely shaft the British public by continuing with this appalling rip-off deal.

On September 15th 2016 Theresa May announced the inevitable: She's choosing to shaft the British public rather than stand up to the Chinese.

Another big problem with the Tory nuclear price-fixing deal is that a Chinese company with a one third stake in the Hinkley Point C project has been charged by the US government with nuclear espionage.

By deciding to continue with a deal to work with a company that stands charged with stealing US nuclear secrets, May is clearly spitting in the eyes of the Americans. The nuclear espionage charges could have been an ideal opportunity to try to renegotiate the deal with less loss of face, but Theresa May spurned it.

The idea of a British Prime Minister spitting in the face of the Americans in order to suck up to the communist Chinese government would have seemed unthinkable just a few years ago, but somehow the Tories are being allowed to completely get away with it by the mainstream media.

Just imagine the howls of outrage in the mainstream press if Jeremy Corbyn had even dared propose a policy of gravely insulting the Americans in order to suck up to communist China (obviously he wouldn't, he'd say that Britain should build its own energy infrastructure), yet the Tories aren't just proposing such an absurd policy, it's what they're actually doing ... and there's barely a whisper of dissent about it in the mainstream press.

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OR

The fracking = lower energy bills myth

In the wake of the decision by Tory dominated North Yorkshire County Council to approve a fracking licence just a few miles south of the North York Moors national park, the fracking apologists have been out in force to try to defend the decision to completely ignore the massive 131:1 scale of opposition to the plans.

One of the favourite tactics of the fracking apologist is to pretend that there is some kind of correlation between fracking and lower domestic energy bills. In this article I'm going to explain how this argument is not only wrong, but actually completely backwards.

Evidence-free assertions

The claims that the introduction of fracking rigs in the English countryside would bring down domestic energy bills is a classic evidence-free assertion. Fracking enthusiasts just seem to take it as an article of faith that fracking would reduce domestic energy bills in the UK. It's like some kind of unquestionable religious to these people.

If you see anyone making these claims it's a good tactic to ask them to direct you to a peer reviewed scientific study detailing a link between fracking and low energy prices in the UK domestic energy market. They won't be able to do so because no such study exists. They'll just continue repeating the claim on the basis that it's true because they want it to be true.

The UK is not the US

 

Evidence of devastating environmental damage in the US and "cut and run" tactics from unscrupulous US fracking companies who abandon their fracking rigs for the taxpayer to clean up is shrugged off by fracking enthusiasts with the excuse that those things happened in the US and it will all somehow all be different in the UK. However, when it comes to their stories about fracking leading to lower energy prices, they immediately point to the fall in domestic gas prices in the US as if it represents compelling and unquestionable evidence.

It would be easy to dismiss such tactics as "wanting to have their cake and eat it" because it is about as clear an example as possible, but there are some specific reasons that direct comparisons between the US and UK dometic gas markets are desperately misleading.

The early 21st Century fracking boom in the US did lead to a fall in domestic gas prices in the US, but their gas industry was not set up for the mass export/import of gas, so the majority of additional supplies remained within the US market, which created a glut which drove down the price of gas. Not only is the US gas market not set up for mass exportation, there are also laws to disincentivise US firms from exporting energy.

The UK gas industry is very different. The UK gas market is much more interconnected with other countries. If gas production rose in the UK, then domestic prices would be unlikely to fall far because the UK gas market is nowhere near as closed as the US market. In order to significantly reduce domestic gas prices, the UK would need to begin extracting a vast enough quantity of shale gas to impact the entire European gas market. Anyone who thinks that is likely to happen any time soon clearly has no idea whatever about the scale of Russian gas exports to the European market. In 2015 Gazprom (the Russian state gas monopoly) exported 159.4 billion cubic metres of gas to the European market. Third Energy are reluctant to disclose their projections for how much gas they are planning to extract from the KM8 fracking zone, but it's fair to asume that it's going to be an absolutely tiny drop in the ocean compared to the production of the North Sea gas industry, let alone the scale of Russian gas exports to the European market.

Anyone who tries to point to the fall in gas prices in the US as evidence that UK gas prices would also fall is doing nothing but displaying their ignorance of the structural differences between the US and UK energy markets.

 

Ignoring externalities

 

Even if we allow the entirely unproven assertion that fracking will produce lower UK domestic energy bills to stand, there's still the issue of externalities to consider.

If fracking does shave a few pennies off our domestic energy bills, what will be the hidden/unconsidered costs? 

One of the most obvious potential costs that is excluded from the "lower energy bills" claims is the potential cost to the taxpayer of attempting to repair fracking related environmental degridation (in 2013 the Tories exempted the fracking industry from liability insurance). If fracking causes environmental degridation it will either be permanent (an environmental externality), or the taxpayer will have to foot the bill (a taxpayer subsidy that is excluded from the calculation).

Then there's the cost of George Osborne handing the fracking industry a vast tax break in order to make the industry seem even remotely viable. If lower energy prices come at the cost of the taxpayer propping up an unviable industry with huge tax breaks (lost tax revenues), that's clearly an example of giving with one hand and taking away with the other.

Another potential cost is the environmental harm from continued reliance on the burning of fossil fuels to meet our domestic energy demands. Instead of handing vast tax breaks to the fracking industry, surely a more environmentally sustainable strategy would to invest more in things like renewable energy, increased energy efficiency and research into technology like clean fusion reactors?

Another set of costs that has been excluded from the optimistic and unsubstantiated "lower energy bills" claims of the pro-fracking brigade are the costs to the local community. If roads need to be widened to cope with increased traffic, local taxpayers will pay the cost. If property prices fall because of the gigantic fracking rigs in the area, the local community will pay the cost. If the fracking process ends up damaging or destroying the land, the local community will pay the cost.

One of the classic ways of making a bad deal look like a good deal is to cut out all of the extrnalities such as social harms, environmental degredation and economic costs borne by the taxpayer. If these costs are taken into consideration, an even bigger heap of salt needs to be piled on top of unsubstantiated claims that fracking will cause domestic energy bills to fall.

Fracking depends on high energy prices

  

It's already established that claims that fracking will cause UK energy bills to fall are not based on anything remotely resembling peer reviewed scientific studies. It's also clear that such claims are worthless if they involve the exclusion of externalities like social and environmental costs, and economic costs that are carried by the taxpayer. However the most damning criticism of all is that the whole claim is completely backwards. There's no evidence to prove that fracking in the UK would cause energy bills to fall, but if energy bills do fall significantly, then fracking becomes an economically unviable method of energy extraction.

Fracking won't cause lower energy bills because the whole industry is relient upon high energy prices to survive.

The reason fracking relies on high energy prices is that it generates very low rates of Energy Returned on Energy Invested (EROEI) meaning that the margins are an awful lot slimmer tan traditional forms of fossil fuel extraction like oil and natural gas.

The ever improving EROEI ratings for renewable technologies such as solar, wind and wave power also point to difficult times ahead for the fracking industry (unless the Tory government decide to prop fracking up with even more tax breaks and subsidies whilst directly attacking the renewable energy sector).

A look at the way fracking companies across the US "cut and run" when energy prices fell leaving a trail of envirnmental degridation in their wake is direct evidence that the fracking industry is highly dependent upon high energy prices. If falling energy prices caused such chaos in the US fracking business that left Exxon's Chief Executive complaining that they were "losing our shirts" and Total's boss decying extraordinary losses in Texas with claims that Fracking "doesn't work" and that there's "no point in investing where there is no profitability" - then what on earth makes fracking enthusiasts think that the UK fracking business would be exempt from the consequences of the low energy prices they claim that it would cause?

 

Tory energy market price-fixing

Fracking enthusiasts need not be too worried that falling energy prices will derail their beloved industry though, because the Tories have signed up to a vast energy price-fixing deal to bribe the French state into building a nuclear reactor at Hinkley Point C by paying them double the market rate for electricity for 35 years. A crackpot scam to artificially inflate energy prices like the Tory price-fixing deal with the French is a surefire way of making the horribly inefficient shale gas fracking industry look financially viable.

 

Conclusions

 

Environmental destruction in Wyoming after fracking

companies "cut and run" leaving the US taxpayer to

pick up the bill.

Even after the US propped up the shale gas fracking industry with vast tax breaks and woefully inadequate liability insurance rates, the fracking business in the US has imploded due to falling energy prices, leaving an environmental catastrophe in its wake.

The Tories are utterly determined not to learn any lessons from this debacle in the US, deciding to throw vast subsidies and tax breaks around in order to promote fracking in the UK. It's absolutely clear that a large number of Tory politicians have investments in the fracking business, so it's no wonder they're doing everything in their power to promote an industry that is only viable if energy prices remain high.

If deliberately puncturing the growth of the UK sustainable energy sector; signing completely unjustifiable 35 year price-fixing deals with the French to keep UK domestic energy prices as high as posible; giving fracking companies vast tax advantages over other fossil fuel sources, bribing local councils into allowing fracking to go ahead in their areas; exempting fracking companies from covering their own clean-up costs; riding roughshod over the concerns of local communites where fracking is going to be imposed; and spreading completely back-to-front myths about fracking lowering energy prices - is what it takes for the Tories to support the fracking industry, then so be it. David Cameron and his Tory chums have made it absolutely clear that they're "going  all out for shale".

 Another Angry Voice  is a "Pay As You Feel" website. You can have access to all of my work for free, or you can choose to make a small donation to help me keep writing. The choice is entirely yours.

OR

Scottish independence and the "heavy price" of voting no

According to the IPPR Future of England survey 2014, I'm in a small minority of Englishmen who support Scottish independence. Just 19% of respondents to the Future of England survey were in favour, which makes me one of the few English people who support the idea of greater autonomy and increased political accountability north of the border.

The findings of this survey paint an ugly picture of England as a land filled with bitter, resentful and vindictive people, seething with anger at the audacity of the Scots for even daring consider an escape from the misrule of the Westminster establishment.

What is much more concerning than the fact that the majority of the English oppose Scottish independence, is the fact that a clear majority believe that the Westminster establishment should punish the people of Scotland with huge funding cuts should they vote against independence in the referendum. The mainstream media has described this attitude as "the English" seeking a "heavy price" for the independence referendum.

The motivation behind this common English desire to have Scottish funding cut by some £4 billion to bring per capita spending down to the UK average, is the pervasive media narrative that the Scottish are a bunch of "subsidy junkies".

A brief look at the actual facts reveals that Scotland does indeed benefit from slightly higher per capita government spending than the UK average, however Scotland also has a much higher per capita GDP than the rest of the UK, thanks largely to the revenues from Scottish oil and gas. Once the proceeds from oil and gas are added into the equation it turns out that tax revenues in Scotland are nearly 20% higher than the UK average which would make slightly higher public spending seem pretty fair.

Once the supply of North Sea oil begins to dwindle, Scotland also has huge renewable energy potential, including some 25% of EU offshore wind potential, 25% of EU tidal potential, and 10% of EU hydroelectric potential.

These vast supplies of actual and potential energy reserves make Scotland a very wealthy country indeed, however a great swathe of the English public seem to believe that the Scottish people should be denied the benefits of all of this Scottish energy wealth so that it can be distributed to the people of England instead.


One of the most absurd things about this English bitterness towards Scotland is the way that they completely overlook the fact that government spending in London is much higher than the levels of public spending in Scotland that the mainstream media have whipped them up into a frenzy of bitterness and jealousy about.

The disparity in public spending between London and the rest of England is so enormous that more than half of England's infrastructure budget is spent just in London and the South East. To put this into perspective, the annual investment in transport infrastructure in the North East of England is just £246 per person, while the annual amount in London is £4,895!

You'd have to be a particularly one-eyed Englishman to allow the mainstream media to whip you up into a frenzy over the fact that average public spending in Scotland is slightly higher than the average for England, without realising, or caring, that vastly more public money is poured into London than anywhere else, including Scotland (and that's without even adding the £1.5 trillion in public money that was sunk into the City of London financial sector to save the bankers from the consequences of their own reckless gambling into the equation).

When the majority of English people demand that the level of Scotland's per capita government spending is reduced to the UK average, what they are actually demanding is that the Scottish public be denied the economic benefits of their own abundance of natural resources, so that the benefits can be redistributed to England instead. In order to adopt this absurd "It's not fair that Scotland gets more" position, they have to completely ignore the elephant in the room, which is the vastly bigger disparity that exists between government spending in London, compared with the rest of England.

What makes this common English "punish them if they vote no" attitude so much worse is the fact that the majority of respondents to the IPPR survey also want to see the Westminster establishment use its powers to obstruct an independent Scotland by trying to force them out of the EU and other international institutions, and by attempting to prevent them from using the pound (even though that would be impossible because the pound is a fully tradeable international currency). 

This "punish them whatever they decide to do" stance actually makes a very strong argument in favour of Scottish independence. Not only do a majority of my fellow Englishmen want Scotland to vote no to independence because they feel a sense of entitlement to the revenues from Scottish natural resources, they also want Westminster to attempt to severely punish the people of Scotland for their audacity, should they dare vote yes to independence.

It seems that the majority of my fellow Englishmen are not very nice bedfellows at all. The fact that most of my countrymen oppose Scottish independence isn't all that much of a problem, after all, everyone is entitled to their opinion. What is completely unacceptable is the ridiculous sense of entitlement that so many English people seem to have towards the proceeds from Scottish natural resources, and the blatantly vindictive "punish them whatever they decide to do" attitudes they hold towards the people of Scotland.

All three of the Westminster establishment parties have been offering Scotland "jam tomorrow" promises of more decision making powers for Scotland should the people of Scotland vote no to independence, however the results of this survey show that the English electorate are baying for Scottish blood. It seems extremely likely that any further devolution of powers would also see massive cuts in Scottish public spending, imposed in order to appease the much larger English electorate.

The only way for the people of Scotland to ensure that the economic benefits of their abundant natural resources are not redistributed to England is to vote in favour of independence. The majority of my fellow Englishmen want to see the people of Scotland punished whatever they decide to do, and should the Scottish people vote against independence, it's quite clear that it would come at a "heavy price".

The results of this survey are an embarrassment to England. They paint us as a selfish, resentful and vindictive bunch with an intense loathing for the Scottish, however I'm proud to be one of the minority of English people who support the idea of Scottish independence, and wish the people of Scotland all the best for the future, no matter what the outcome of the independence referendum.

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