Beelbeebub

It is a not unreasonable situation and one that would bankrupt someone if income were taxed instead of profits.

You're missing the point. It illustrates why taxing income at a flat rate and not allowing any expenses won't work. There is a reason we tax profits after expenses and not income.

60% of Britons support "net zero" to a greater or lesser degree Vs 25% who oppose it. That's a pretty big majority The interesting thing is the majority of people who oppose it think their view is the majority of the public's view rather than realising they are a minority. About 3/4 of the 25% who oppose net zero,so a bit under 20% of the public think their view is the majority view. Which explains a lot of the confidently wrong takes we see online.

That's odd We've had a bunch done and when we reran the assesment with the addition of 2.5kwp of panels wen got loads of points. Easily lifting one and sometimes 2 grades (10 points or more on some cases). It did seem to depend a bit on the individual property. Some were a bit less than 10 and others were well over

We used shortish rails (I can't remember the brand, Van Der something) that were screwed parallel to and on top of the ridges in the roof. This is to allow the landscape orientation of the panels. It did mean the placement of the clamps was varying from panel to panel but we managed to get them all (just) in the allocated clamping zones. The only issue (apart from the rail locations being fixed to ridge locations) was I had to be careful when placing the stitching screws that tie the ridge of one sheet to the next. If I had a choice I think I'd go for the type of short rail that spans between 2 ridges for a portrait orientation. Which would avoid that issue.

The conservatives have announced their energy policy It appears to be based on this document https://ukonward.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/Powering-Britain_-A-comparison-of-policy-pathways-to-2050.pdf The net effect seems to be to get a lot more of our energy from gas than the current trajectory. This makes their cost savings assumptions very dependent on their assumptions of future natural gas prices. They have assumed a stable future price around £24 per Mwh (in 2025 prices) They are also relying on building an extra 7Gw of nuclear capacity (about 2 to 3 new plants). And they will achive this by making government more focused on delivering nuclear - as if this is a magic wand. These assumptions seem to be, in the words of Sir Humphrey, "courageous". Nowhere on the document can I find anything addressing the energy security in the context of being able to source gas from abroad. There is a lot of focus on "security of supply" - which in the context it is used seems to mean firm Vs intermittent power. But nothing on how we secure the continuity of our power supply if there is an issue with gas imports eg a pipeline or LNG terminal being destroyed by sabotage.

Maybe let's get back to the subject of UK oil and gas reserves relative to consumption and leave discussions of local recycling politics behind us.

Running a business and local politics/volunteering organisations are different. People don't really understand local politics and what they can and cannot do witness reform candidates running for country council positions on a platform of stopping the small boats - an area in which they have absolutely zero power. I would suggest you try a turn at parish council - with your amazing competence I am sure you'll be able to turn things around and then you won't have to worry about the recycling or potholes or whatever irked you. And in the unlikely event you fail you'll have learned a lesson in how even brilliant people with good intentions can't always succeed.

And i bet everyone marvels at how well run the ville hall is. Absolutely nobody whines about the booking system or the noise or the parking or the sound system or the kitchen not being laid out well or any of the hundreds of reasons people complain about the village hall.

Retired people make up a large % of parish councillors because they have the free time.

Then do it. Stop carping and become a parish councillor. You'll probably find things aren't as easy as you think and then have to endure people calling you useless and saying they could 100% do better.

There are several businesses that pivoted to new sectors successfully but that doesn't mean every business is looking for that pivot and often big shareholder companies will find it harder to do so because the senior management team are incentivised to maximise short term profits which rarely means long term investments in things that are not "core".

Actually on the topic of companies investing outside their "core" business, the story of "LEO" (Lyons Electronic Organiser) - one of the world's first real-time business computers - being designed and built by a company that specialised in cafes serving tea and cakes is pretty cool.

It's also that companies don't invest in the best possible return. They invest for the best possible return *given their circumstances*. A vegetable wholesaler might invest in new forklifts or chilled storage and ignore the oil field off the coast because their expertise and structure are set up for selling spuds and carrots and not extracting oil An oil company is set up to extract stuff out of the ground, maybe refine it into petrol or diesel and sell it. They aren't set up to invest in windfarms and solar panels that make electricity they have to sell to the grid.

Indeed. The point being the logical trap of "BP is not investing on X, therefore X cannot be a good investment".