December 5, 2024
The Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, delivers an important speech.
‘We must change how we try to change the country . . . at the end of the day – we all have a stake in change . . . what people want from change – that hasn’t changed . . . the change we promised at the election . . . the work of change has begun . . . the path of change is long . . . change is what we will deliver.’ (That speech: read it and weep at the mangling, distortion and total devastation of the glorious English language.)
January 2025
17th: Hard frosts begin. Daytime maximum minus three plus bitter easterly wind. Thousands of pensioners flock to A&E departments, town halls, libraries and anywhere warm. Media swamped with rude messages about the combination of high cost of electricity and withdrawal of pensioners’ Winter Fuel Payments.
20th: President Trump back in the White House. His inauguration speech includes a boast that the US has the cheapest electricity in the world.
(Note for UK readers: 83 per cent of that is generated by means of coal, oil, or gas.)
21st: Forecast of light snow showers.
22nd: At Prime Minister’s Questions, furious MPs demand that the Chancellor Rachel Reeves restores the heating allowance immediately and the cost of electricity must be reduced. The government says it will monitor the situation.
24th: Freeze intensifies. Near-record low temperatures throughout southern England. Social media awash with tales of old people being found frozen to death in their unheated homes.
25th: Winter fuel payments restored.
26th: Reeves resigns, saying that her part in this affair has become a distraction from the government’s urgent business of change. A new Chancellor is appointed.
February 2025
19th: An anti-cyclone (high pressure system) has formed over the North Sea, intensified as it moved across southern Sweden and now covers a large portion of western Europe. Winds are very light over the UK and are mainly from the south so temperatures remain above freezing. But much of Europe is under a bitter Arctic airflow from the Barents Sea north of Norway.
Most of the UK’s North Sea and onshore wind turbines have barely sufficient wind to get them started, let alone generate useful electricity. But there is just enough for some of those down the west coast. Thanks to the relatively mild temperatures, peak evening total UK electrical demand is only around 45-47 gigawatts (GW), similar to January 2024.
Nuclear is providing around 4.5 GW of that, biomass 1.2, hydro 0.8, wind between 4 & 6, and of course there’s no solar at that time of day. Neither are the usual transfers from Europe on offer because they need everything for themselves as intense cold strikes Poland and south across Austria and northern Italy.
Maximum total available is therefore 35 GW short of what is needed. Fortunately there are still gas-fired power stations, but their total capacity is 29.9 GW, if they are all working and none needing maintenance.
Result: massive power cuts, region by region, in four-hour sessions.
21st: Record number of small boat crossings. Weather ideal in the Channel.
22nd: Rumours on social media of refugee hotels having back-up heating. BBC admits that some parts of the government’s Net Zero policies could be flawed. Calls for reopening of coal-fired power stations. Calls for new look at fracking. Calls for the government to do something.
23rd-25th: Daily power cuts continue.
26th: At PMQs, Starmer and Ed Miliband (Secretary of State for Energy Security & Net Zero) defend their energy policy saying this is only a temporary setback. Climate change is to blame for the unusual and unexpected weather.
27th: Several meteorologically well-informed websites, two newspapers and hundreds of people on social media point out that UK has had similar weather conditions many times in the past, giving numerous examples.
28th: Miliband resigns, saying that his part in this affair has become a distraction from the government’s urgent business of change. A new Secretary of State is appointed.
March 2025
8th: Mass demonstrations by farmers in London, Birmingham, Manchester and Glasgow. Placards explain how new inheritance tax rules mean thousands of farms will become smaller, poorer and less productive generation by generation. Direct action threatened. Rumours spread across social media of multiple suicides.
10th: Record number of small boat crossings in one day. Government forced to reconsider barge accommodation.
15th: Joint nationwide mass demonstrations against new employment taxes by small business managers, hospitality industry leaders, High Street traders, struggling entrepreneurs and care-home proprietors. Banners threaten widespread closures, sackings and redundancies.
17th: Farmers start blockade of any port, air or sea, that brings in food from overseas. Government accuses them of trying to starve the country.
19th: At PMQs, Starmer defends all policy decisions affecting employees and farmers. Tells parliament Labour discovered a Tory financial black hole and had no option.
20th: Union unrest as the scale of redundancies, sackings and reduced employment opportunities this winter becomes apparent. General strike planned.
24th: Supermarkets report dwindling supplies of fresh food. Police estimate three million out on the streets over the previous weekend.
26th: Starmer resigns, saying his part in this affair has become a distraction from the government’s urgent business of change. Procedures begin for the election of a new Labour leader and Prime Minister.
April 2025
9th: New Labour leader and Prime Minister appointed, saying in an inauguration speech that it is now time for change.
