When a politician, or a senior member of that political party, decides on a ‘Long Term Policy’ the first thing which comes to mind is the question; “Has he done his homework?” My white hair and silver beard denote my age, which also goes for the number of politicians, as well as parties, which have crossed my ageing sightlines. And, you’ve guessed it, the number of times that the answer to my original query is “No. He hasn’t even scraped the snow off the ground,” is, well; forever escalating.
For an prime example, a politician who is extremely well known for ‘policy statements’ is the well known serial adulterer, liar, multiple illegal (Lockdown) party-attendee and would-be comedian who goes by the name of Boris Johnson. His Election manifesto was fuelled by a claim that he would be spearheading a major shift in policy, which would ennoble the very weird (but possibly very well-meaning) ideology known as Net Zero by 2050. This strange ideal calls for the United Kingdom to remove, by force if necessary, the sacred cow of burning anything which produces the gas known as Carbon Dioxide. He has expanded upon this ideal by stating that petrol- and diesel-fuelled vehicles will be banned from sale by 2030.
At the same time as pushing these strange ideals, which will cost British people some £11 trillions to achieve these pie-in-sky ideals, inclusive of banning all gas boilers for heating your home by 2035; he has also pushed the whole idea of Electric Vehicles. Now my own son has an EV, and pretty smart it is. He gets an average of 240 miles-per charge, (a fair bit less during winter, because the battery don’t like the cold). He started of being lyrical about not being a fossil-burner any more, and how cheap it was to charge, and how he didn’t have to pay road tax. As he said these words, some two years ago, I smiled to myself, thinking, again to myself, that he was young, very young in terms of experience, especially when it came to politicians, policies and their promises.
Going back to the liar Boris, his time as Prime Minister, and also to this strange idea that he could turn GB&NI on its head, change the whole industrial lifeline of personal and industrial transportation, just by stating “This is what we’ll do.” Readers will note that No Actual Parliamentary Legislation, to follow up on this crass idea of changing our very way of life by the banning of petrol and diesel vehicles, has ever been even rumoured, not by the Tory party, certainly not by the more level-headed Labour Party; possibly by the Green-ies, but who gives two shits about them. The tiny bunch of loud-mouthed Lords’ members headed by the moronic Lord Deben, (he of the burger being force-fed to his unfortunate daughter at the time of Mad Cow Disease) are always foaming at the mouth about CO2 and all the other superheated bullshit which courses through what passes for their veins, but you don’t find many even moderately aware politicians mentioning the fact that if GB&NI removed all CO2 from our atmosphere, the three largest contributors of CO2, namely China, India and America aren’t doing anything nearly as stupid as GB&NI.
Again that question: “Has he done his homework?” Nope, he didn’t even think about what was needed. There are 37,851 publicly available charge points in the whole of GB&NI. How many are actually needed, to comply with both car, public transport and haulage vehicle needs? Over 400,000. The Government reckons on 300,000 by 2030. I calculate they are running late by around 250,000 just by their numbers, not by actual numbers.
I return to my son, and his precious EV. When he first got it, he was working locally, and never had to worry about charging anywhere else except his home. He had the occasional trip away to the Midlands, and then had a fair stretch working away, and then found out some of the many hiccups when your source of transport depends upon electricity, instead of petrol or diesel. At any time, a third of the chargers are out of service, for a multitude of reasons, one of the main ones being that they all depend on the Internet to be able to charge up. If the ‘App’ doesn’t work, or isn’t compatible with the car, you are just out of luck. Many EV owners are just beginning to realise that they are faced with a whole new set of problems, just because they thought that things would be cheaper by EV. And then the Ukraine thingy happened, and the cost of electricity rocketed; so what do the people who fit, supply and run the various charging networks do? Their charges rocket as well: so much so that my son reckons it is more expensive now to run an EV than a fossil-burning car! And then the final branch broke, when the Government decided that they were losing too much cash by not charging for Road tax on EVs, and in a year or two’s time, bang goes that saving as well.
As my philosophy has been for the past six-odd decades, never trust what politicians say, only examine what they really achieve.
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