And some analysis of Trump's speech and the challenge to European leaders, who arrived amid pessimism about the continent's prospects, and leave under direct economic assault from the new President news.sky.com/story/davos-...
Last day in Davos as the World Economic Forum breaks up with threats from Donald Trump ringing in delegates' ears. TV report from last night's declaration of trade war, including walk-on parts for John Kerry, David Miliband... & the great Nile Rodgers 🎸🕺🏔️ youtu.be/b_QhuUrKAgQ?...
💦 📈 As water companies plan to finally address the infrastructure failures of the past, the cost of borrowing for the entire industry has gone up, and that means bills will too. Five charts that explain why you are about to pay a lot more for your water news.sky.com/story/five-c...
Another shift in UK media that speaks volumes about the value of digital transformation. While Spectator (£100m) & Telegraph (£500m TBC) attracted 9-figures the venerable Observer, wrapped into the Guardian online, goes to Tortoise on a promise to invest £25m in a digital brand
Electric cars accounted for one-in-four new registrations in November, above environmental targets the industry wants government to soften news.sky.com/story/electr...
Analysis: As industry lobbies to water down electric vehicle targets, the UK market is doing better than you might think news.sky.com/story/uks-el...
🚗 ⚡️ Not Miami, but Merseyside, for the launch of an actual car you can actually buy. The electric Ford Puma Gen-E, powered by a motor built here at Halewood that will also power the electric Ford Transit
The new jaGuar [subs please check] is a concept rather than a car, and not a wildly original one IMO, but 10/10 for generating attention. (Would make a nice electric razor, “available in gents or ladies”) news.sky.com/story/jaguar...
Five days after he closed Vauxhall’s Luton plant with a sideswipe at UK EV policy, Stellantis CEO resigns
In 2017 I spent a week at St Luke's Hospice in Sheffield with Sky camera operator Andy Lumb, filming with patients as they faced death, and the staff for whom it is a daily duty. Been thinking about that a lot today - palliative care is truly remarkable youtube.com/watch?v=nyPZ...
🧑🎓Project for Oxford quantum physics department: how little do people care who is Chancellor? (Question 2: Despite not giving a monkeys, is the urge to click & find out anyway stronger than gravity?)
Serious bout of EV-geebies after Vauxhall closure. A couple of points - EV’s are only category of sales to GROW market share last month - petrol & diesel declining. And a note on the politics - ZEV mandate was Conservative policy & Badenoch’s responsibility as Biz Sec news.sky.com/story/car-fa...
Breaking: Vauxhall to close its Luton plant in consolidation of UK manufacturing at Ellesmere Port, up to 1,100 jobs in danger from a move that will end 92 years of vehicle production in Bedfordshire media.stellantis.com/uk-en/corpor...
Nick Drake passed 50 years ago today; and initially, I was going to post Road, or something darker from Pink Moon. But instead, here's something more uplifting, to celebrate, rather than mourn.
youtu.be/EZ5X4qesLRs?...
💡Energy price cap up 1.2% from January (0.36p on a unit of electricity & 0.1p on gas). a marginal change consumers may barely notice. What's unignorable is that these prices are the new normal, up around 50% on the last pre-war winter & staying there without structural change
Some lively reporting on heat pumps today. Worth remembering targets regime & £7,500 subsidies were Sunak government policy, delayed after protest from industry, but not scrapped due to threats of ministerial resignations. Notable that industry has welcomed the compromises announced yesterday
Just one hitch - Caborn needed Prescott's approval.
"Do you want the good news or the bad news?"
"Give me the good news."
"The American's gone."
"Thank f*** for that. What's the bad news?"
"We've asked Seb Coe."
"Seb f****** Coe!"
"He's got two gold medals, John."
"He's still a f****** Tory."
🥇🌹Favourite John Prescott story. His ally Richard Caborn was Sports Minister when London 2012 ran into trouble under the leadership of US businesswoman Barbara Cassani. Caborn negotiated her departure & replacement by Seb Coe, multi Olympic medalist, global sporting royalty... and a Conservative 1/
Perfectly pitched from egg man, as was the left jab
🧑🔧💷 PS The £7,500 grant (increased 50% by Rishi Sunak in his Net Zero Sceptic phase, though he tended not to mention it) is A LOT. More than covers cost of a unit & a lot of labour. And many more homes will be comfortably heated by one without new insulation/windows, despite what you might hear 4/4
⚡️🚗🤔 Might this compromise tell us something about Labour's approach to the car industry & EVs, where the same issues apply? An industry worried about fines for missing electrification targets is calling for looser rules, and consumer incentives to buy, of which there are barely any 3/4
Well the new government has announced the Clean Heat Market Mechanism will proceed with concessions to industry. Fines for missing targets cut from £3,000/unit to £500 in first year with £295m to fund £7,500 grants for heat pump installation 2/4 assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/673e0f...
⚡️🔥You might recall a shemozzle earlier this year over "boiler tax" - fines for manufacturers missing targets to sell proportion of heat pumps alongside gas boilers. Big row in
DESNZ, ministers at loggerheads & fines were postponed for a year 1/4 news.sky.com/story/heat-p...
Spoke to the Sly News Daily about the farmers’ protest, how many will actually pay inheritance tax, and whether the real questions is why doesn’t farming pay? t.co/IJafU5jPf9?s...
To Westminster for the farmers’ protest, which I’m pretty sure won’t be deterred by a bit of sleet. Written about the background and detail of changes to inheritance tax that have stirred a rural revolt, here with Aoife Yourell news.sky.com/story/whats-...
