Welcome to Britain Watch

All the signs are that the governance of Britain is spiralling out of control: record trade and budget deficits; a swollen bureaucracy; an inadequate but costly education system; a government incapable of providing for our future energy needs; record emigration of native Britons, unprecedented levels of immigration; a mind-set putting the non-citizen ahead of the British citizen.

Britain Watch has been set up to highlight key examples of these trends and to promote practical reforms to reverse the incompetence and loss of national self belief they engender. All readers are invited to participate.

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Signposts to Ruin

Comment from Ageing Albion

This is a comment on the post “More English Effacement” published in September last year, about the England Rugby team’s choice of colours in the Rugby World Cup in New Zealand.

The choosing of an all black alternative colour was either the most spectacularly ignorant decision in British sporting history (if they didn’t know anything about the New Zealand hosts of the tournament, which I cannot believe) or a deliberate attempt to wind up the hosts. They would – must – have known that the New Zealanders would take it either as a cheap shot or a pathetic imitation. [more »] (0)

More Nuclear Folly in Prospect
At his “summit” meeting with Nicholas Sarkozy – French President for the next two months – Prime Minister Cameron gave away British nuclear interests in what was presented as a British-French civil nuclear alliance, but which will be in fact a takeover of the British nuclear market by French industry unless it can be stopped. [more »] (0)

Taxation Matters
As Budget Day (March 21st) approaches, the airwaves are full of suggestions for (a) tax reductions for “poor” people (LibDems) and (b) tax reductions for “well-off” people (Conservatives).  Apparently these are to be paid for by tax increases on other people, usually foreigners (non-doms). An economic realist would imagine that with the UK government set to cover only about 82% of its expenditure from taxes this year, the emphasis should be entirely on more tax raising until that 18% gap is closed and the government can begin to pay down the colossal accumulated national debt built up in the Brown-Blair years. [more »] (0)

Royal Mail's Crass Choice of Jubilee Stamps
One wonders who in Royal Mail is responsible for the subjects which it chooses for its stamps[1].  Sometimes we get postage stamps looking like trading stamps, but even they are preferable to one featuring England’s 1966 World Cup winning team announced as one of four Diamond Jubilee stamps on February 1st. Surely even the closed world of Royal Mail’s Board of Management can understand that this event was forty-six, yes, 46 years ago. Does Royal Mail not realise that Britain has other things to define the Queen’s reign by which are far more notable than a football competition which England has failed to win for 46 years and whose miserable performance in the last competition in South Africa in 2010 was a national embarrassment. [more »] (0)

The Higgs-boson
What do the Higgs-boson and the benefits of the UK’s membership of the EU have in common? [more »] (0)

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Challenge to the City: new British Nuclear Corporation urgently needed

| May 11th, 2012 (0 comments)

An article in the Business Section of the Times of 7th May 2012 was headed “Soaring costs threaten nuclear plans”.  It is important to realise that this refers only to the French-designed Areva EPR 1600 model of reactor favoured by French state-owned EDF Energy, who have “undertaken” to build and commission two such reactors at Hinckley Point in Somerset by 2017.

As this is now quite impossible, whatever undertakings the Department of Energy & Climate Change have offered EDF and their minority partner Centrica in the venture are now completely void and Britain must adopt a completely new nuclear strategy which keeps ownership and construction in British hands – which should have been done in the first place.

The costs being quoted by EDF (7 billion per 1.6 GW reactor or £4,300 per KW are clearly designed to frighten the British government ahead of its forthcoming White Paper on Electricity Market Reform (the Queen’s Speech 9th May) into offering EDF an even greater level of subsidy than heretofore contemplated.

It is demeaning for any British government to rely on foreign owners and operators for something as absolutely vital for our survival as energy supplies.  First the German companies E.ON and RWE have withdrawn, now the French EDF is virtually gone.  EDF is hooked into the French-designed Areva EPR 1600 reactor, of which what are essentially only prototypes are being built at Olkilnoto in Finland and at Flamanville in France.  Both are 3-4 years behind schedule, in dispute with their customers, and 50% or more over budget.  Areva itself is in deep financial trouble, asking for its shares to be withdrawn from the French Stock Exchange last December.

Need for a new British Electricity Generating Company

Britain needs to establish a wholly-owned British Nuclear Corporation charged with building up to 10 new nuclear power stations over the next 20-25 years using the Westinghouse 1.1 GW AP 1000 design (which until Gordon Brown foolishly sold Westinghouse to Toshiba, we used to own).  The forerunner of  the AP 1000, which is the only viable system in the world, has been working steadily at Sizewell in Suffolk for the last 16 years, six of the current AP 1000 designs are under construction in China on time and on budget, the US regulatory authorities have granted a construction and operating licence for two new AP 1000 units in Georgia, and the UK authorities have granted interim approval as well.  Westinghouse has retained British engineering personnel at their site at Warrington in Cheshire waiting only for final approval of the AP 1000 design when a definite customer appears in Britain.  The Westinghouse cost estimates based on actual experience are in the region of £2,800 per KW. …[more»]