For those who reckon that this is only coming about through massive taxpayer-funded subsidies, you are probably correct - as far as the short-term is concerned.

Fossil fuel energy resources are finite, they will run out in the long term but more importantly, they will get massively more expensive in the short term. We have squandered the wealth of oil & gas in the North Sea, so we are now net importers and as such, are subject to the market forces that will see fossil fuel prices continue to rise.

Many new & novel technologies require some form of government intervention. I'm old enough to remember the argument against the introduction of unleaded gasoline ("we'll need a separate pump on EVERY forecourt"icon_wink.gif. I can also remember the massive programme of refitting every gas cooker, gas fire and gas boiler, so that we could switch from the noxious town gas to cleaner-burning natural gas. All of this happened without the consumer having to pay a penny at point of supply. It was paid through duty reductions and government spending & subsidies. So please don't tell me the private sector would handle the job, they'd just look for the cheapest option every time.

And for the deniers of anthropological climate-change - "go fook yourselves".

Great news for the region.

and dont forget the russians are looking at potentially huge untapped areas of the frozen north as sources of fossil fuels - if this happens they could have almost as much of a say in the pricing of fuel as the middle east, and could end up holding a lot of countries to ransom over fuel prices. any energy sources we can provide ourselves will help us in the long term

Despite a period of strong economic growth, and a decent start by Brown as chancellor the spend more than you earn drug eventually caught hold. Deficits were revised upwards year upon year as the economy slowed while the borrowing and spending increased. The deficit was worse than when Labour called in the IMF in 1976.

[url=http://www.moneyweek.com/news-and-charts/economics/gordon-browns-poisoned-chalice.aspxIt was all going wrong well before the crash.[/url

We should have been building new a new wave of nuclear power stations long since. Another failure of the previous regime. As for the purporters of, as you put it, - anthropological climate change -, they've fooked themselves on regular occasions and delivering poor and inaccurate science has not helped their cause one iota.

And what about the subsidies for nuclear, care to even attempt to put a figure on them?

Then we get to the decommissioning, something else that has been heavily subsidised, with costs buried. Unfortunately the legacy remains. A local nuclear plant has just finished a fifteen year decommissioning, the doors were locked in December. The grandchildren of the last bloke out will be old men before the site is considered safe enough for demolition, never mind redevelopment.

What poor and inaccurate science are you deniers claiming now?

Reducing the amount of energy we consume as a nation should be the priority. Given the technolgies that are out there even a lot of modern housing and commercial structures are still very inefficient, older buildings are terrible.
As it stands Wind Power is going to have such a minor effect on the energy requirement it is a joke. When you consider that many have to be switched off due to high winds because there are no storage facilities for the extra electricty and the companies that own these 'Switched off' windmills get paid huge amounts to do so (£13,000 an hour for ONE was one report)

The cost of producing energy is a fairly calculable thing, of course there are costs many years down the line for nuclear but this still works out much cheaper than wind energy. Ranges from twice as cheap to 30% at the very low end.
Still we have the natural resources around the UK to enable relative CO2 free energy production but it appears that the funding for wave energy is massively underwhelming.
Also grants to enable energy production in the home are pretty much worthless or non existant now so no incentive, various methods could be included in every new home built but governments wont force it as they lose out on taxes.

We're doooomed...lol

This will be massive for this area, OK not the 10k jobs as predicted but you look at the bigger picture and it will bring at least half that amount.

Hopefully force the hand on the Castle st upgrade amingst other things and bring further investement to the area

There are a handful of MPs who know what they're doing or are at least doing their best with the right motivations. Unfortunately none of these will end up anywhere near ministerial posts, let alone PM. Our political system sucks.

My last hope was that we might make a go of a coalition government, as I'm a fan of consensus politics. Looks like we can't even manage that. I'm more depressed for my kids than myself TBH as there's no sign of the downward trend reversing or even stabilising.

interesting observation, I don't see much real evidence of a downward trend in my day to day dealings with things, other than the general educational standards and behaviour of people, but that isn't economic.

when you say "downward trend", what do you mean?

Really?!

Please explain how.

I think the standard of politicians is dropping. Too many of them with no clue and no real life experience or relevant skills. There is also an increasing failure of the media to hold these people to account and ask hard questions.

I'm willing to admit that might be 'grumpy old bugger' syndrome kicking in, mind.

I believe there are signs. The construction industry, which I believe, is one of the good tangible monitors of economies. I work as a consultant with many of the large design firms in the UK and generally things are a lot better than they were a year ago, without doubt. Were companies were making redundancies, many are now having to scramble to recruit staff due to skill shortfalls due to the increase in workload. I train said staff, and at the moment I'm run off my feet. Thats my little world, but from my perspective things are not as bleak as the media make out.

It is certainly true to say that the public sector cuts are tempering that "recovery", as Manchester City Council has just shown, but do believe that the industry is now stable at least (i.e. enough work to sustain its current overall size), if not recovering.

ah right, I thought you meant a downward trend in economic terms, not in terms of the quality of politicians.

I wholeheartedly agree, 20/30 years ago politicians were in it for mush more alturistic reasons (as well as feathering their own nests) but very few were in it for ego or self publication, now they are all pretty much the same, many are lifetime politicians or civil servants who have little or no real experience of the arenas in which they are operating/legislating.

It's no better at Local Authoruty level either.

I probably should have been clearer. I was thinking more of the general state of politics and the social infrastructure - particularly education - rather than economics. My own company is having probably our best year ever, and we've been around for more than 30 years.

As I said to Standee, it might just be me developing into a typically grumpy and disillusioned bloke with his 50th birthday closing in, but I'm pretty depressed about the UK right now. In particular we've made a right mess of our education system and seem intent on making things worse. That doesn't bode well for the future IMO.

Indeed, as I was saying on the dissertation thread until it disappeared, education in the UK has become totally devalued, anyone and everyone can go to University and get a degree in something, that isn't what our ambition should have been, what we should have strived for is that everyone has equal opportunity to access higher education if they have the relevant intelligence and dedication, instead we dumbed down the whole system in the name of making it "fair", which has led to complete degredation of the skills of young people, I'm only 36 and even I despair at the quality of spelling and grammar (not on these boards, I mean in letters/emails) and a total lack of general knolwedge about the wider world.

But then I am sure my Dad's generation said that about the generation that are just hitting their 40's now!

The UK has to become a nation of innovators, engineers, technicians, scientists instead of builders, farmers, fisherman and manufactures - I think we are, slowly and begrudgingly heading in the right direction. Our engineering, architectural, as well as scientific, academic and economic industries are among the best respected the world over. Clients in emerging economies still want British companies to do the job - and there is a reason for that - quality.

I work in one of those industries, and I promote innovation - which British companies are investiing in in the bucket load. I think the future is an exciting one, especially for the UK - we are leading the way in many areas of importance.

Politically, we need to sort ourselves out. I agree. Has that ever not been true?

I do agree that we have made a bit of a mess with the Eduction system in this country... not only have we managed to now pull funding from school building and maintenance programs (Thanks Mr Cameron), but education cuts make it very difficult for teachers to teach, and there is the real worry that we will be losing teachers when we should be getting more of them. I firmly believe Eduction should be protected above just about everything else. Further, IMO, we need to get kids off "media studies" courses and into architecture, science, maths etc more, and we have failed to do that for many years now - but thats my personal soap box issue.

Unfortunately, countries like India and China, and even places like Iran are not making the same mistake - that we need to sort out, but I do believe that our above mentioned industries will see us into a bright and prosperous future.

you know my thoughts on that, so no point covering old ground.


what cuts?



do you think many of the recent graduates that have become teachers are really capable of educating legions of architects, scientists etc..

I don't, most new teachers I have met recently can only teach by using pre-prepared materials and lesson plans, they are not educators nor inspirational.

Point 1 - I'm not complaining about the subsidies in the short term. What we have to be very careful about though is ensuring our economic recovery is not disadvantaged because the price of energy charged to our manufacturing base, and for that matter domestic consumers, is higher than the price charged to our competitors in other countries as a result of our green crusade. Further investment in green technology can only be maintained long term if our economy grows and creates the money for investment. Crusading for the green approach is fine (and Mr Huhne in the current regime is a real champion) but it's not viable to fleece the citizens and businesses for the extra investment cash forever by way of higher energy costs - this will prevent the economy from generating future investment needed and we will fall behind.

Point 2 - I'm not representing the 'deniers' as you put it - I didn't offer my view on climate change so put down your placard. The reference to poor science relates to several gaffes in the lifetime of the IPCC. [url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8387737.stmHere's one[/url. Producing scaremongering garbage like that provides plenty of ammo for those who can produce other science that is contrary to the view, and leaves the argument open to those that may be suspicious of vested interest in what is now and will continue to be a multi billion pound industry.

Anyway as I said at the start well done to Hull for getting the nod here - a much needed boost.

The biggest problem education faces in my view is the declining standard of people entering the teaching profession. For the last 30-40 years education has been abysmally handled by successive power bearers. We are now left with the frightening prospect that due to the fact that our education standards are so low the overall level of those hired to teach is not high enough. It's a bad place to be. Whilst having shiny new buildings might help - and if we had the money would be great - it wouldn't address the core problem IMHO.

Well there is the £4bn from Uni's as a start. And I regard cutting eduction infrastructure as been as big a cut in eduction as any thing - teachers and their pupils need inspiring, functional and appropiate spaces to teach.



Well, graduates have never "taught" architects (not familiar with the scientific world), architects teach architectural students. If they did your point would be spot on. Many Chartered Architects and Engineers also work for Universities in teaching roles. It wouldn't work any other way. Further you are only really let off the leash in this country on Chartership, something that is achieved through experience and study while in the work place - it goes back to what I was saying earlier about "quality" - its why we lead the world. Companies like Fosters, Arups, Atkins are all at the top of the game.

It is true that some of the peripheral knowledge is taught differently, indeed I teach Architects and Engineers the latest software - but even I've got 12 years industry experience as a technician, they wouldn't hire me otherwise.

You are right, although as I've said in my previous post there is possibly a misunderstanding of how knowledge is passed in this country sometimes - we are not talking about GCSE maths when we are talking about the eduction of Engineers and Architects, as a process it's very different.

However, there is a cycle to all of these things - you need the companies for the eduction, you need the eduction for the companies - we have the companies, debatably the eduction is suffering at the moment, although I personally believe that is less to do with the eduction process, more to do with the aspirations of young people in this country, generally speaking. In otherwords, we need to keep building, keep recruiting local were possible, bringing in skill were needed in order to stimulate the whole system.

spoken as someone who has enjoyed the excess of the schools building programme.

Why is it that in my everyday life I come across people from the developing world that happily learn in a mud hut?

We need to get back to having disciplined and inspiring teachers, I spent many of my school years learning in a portakabin, it wasn't detrimental to my learning, the only two subjects that woefully failed me were French and Biology, and that was because my teachers for both were totally uninspiring and made the subject as painful as pullin teeth.

FFS Standee, if you knew what working on BSF was like budget wise, you would never have used the word "enjoyed".



Investment in schools, teachers, materials, matieniance, development and infrastructure, is one of this countries biggest requirements. My views on that have nothing to do with my previous time working on BSF, although I do believe that investment has nothing put positive effects all around, including for those who support the industry such as the building trade. The Tories have raped and pillaged this which will prove to be a huge mistake.



Because culturally that is were we are at. We don't live in the developing world, and I have every respect for how people in that situation get on, it is truly remarkable. But the simple fact is, that is not the UK, people here are use to a standard and when they don't get it, they gosomewere else - the same rule applies world over. Simple.



We need both. We need the teachers, like you say to be disaplined and inspiring, fullly agree, and we need the enviroment (and I'm not just talking new bricks and mortar) for them to do the job they need. I'm a teacher (of sorts), put me in a cramped hot room with poor lighting and equipment and I will do my best, but it will simply not be as good as been a light, fresh and well equipped space.

I also work in a high-technology innovation-led industry and I agree that British companies still do well. How much longer that will be the case is in question. I've been told by many of my customers in the semiconductor industry that there just isn't the number or quality of science and engineering graduates necessary for them to continue to grow or even to replace retiring staff. This is a direct result of the education policies of successive administrations.

Starting at Primary level, the quality of teaching staff has fallen over the years. I have direct experience of this as I was a school governor for many years at my local primary school. You wouldn't believe the poor level of applications for posts - people with very few qualifications, poor academic grades, applications submitted full of spelling and grammar errors - sorting the wheat from the chaff became increasingly difficult. And we were one of the best schools in the county!

Secondary education was admitted to be a mess at the start of New Labour's administration and still in a similar state at the end. Constant tinkering with exams and the introduction of league tables that encouraged schools to stream pupils into easier subjects rather than challenge them to succeed hasn't helped at all. And there is a huge shortfall in quality teachers for subjects such as maths and sciences.

Tertiary education was ruined by the ideological decision to increase the number of pupils studying for a degree from around 10% to 50% - something which simply could not be justified or afforded. As a result we now have tuition fees that ensure anyone studying for a science or engineering degree at a decent university will start their working life massively in debt. Given that science and engineering jobs in this country are generally not that well paid, why would anyone bother?

Top to bottom, education is a mess. And Grove is a low-grade moron who will just make things worse. This is the future of our country, the essential element in our future success and economic growth, and it's not fit for purpose.

Hence my depression.




It's worse now than it's ever been. The current cabinet is a joke - nobody with any brains in the most important posts and a snake-oil merchant as PM. They'll probably only last 4 or 5 years but they can do incalculable damage to the country in that time