UK EVs now cheaper than petrol cars

 From The Guardian

The price of new battery electric cars has fallen below petrol cars in the UK for the first time, according to the car sales website Autotrader, in a significant milestone in Britain’s transition away from fossil fuels.

The average price of a new electric car listed on the website was £42,620, compared with £43,405 for a new petrol model – making the former £785 cheaper based on advertised prices after discounts.

The higher upfront cost of electric vehicles has long been one of the big sticking points preventing some drivers from switching away from cars with polluting petrol and diesel engines towards those with battery motors, which do not emit carbon dioxide directly. Total running costs for electric cars have been lower for some time.

UK battery electric car sales accounted for 22% of new car sales in the first three months of the year, according to the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders, a lobby group.

Prices in the UK have been pushed down by the electric car grant brought in last summer, offering up to £3,750 off some models. Carmakers have also been under intense pressure to drop prices to meet electric car targets, known as the zero emission vehicle (ZEV) mandate, and from an influx of Chinese competitors that have been able to undercut traditional brands.

Autotrader is the UK’s biggest automotive marketplace, although it does not cover all transactions across the country. The data suggests that the UK has reached a pivotal moment for decarbonising its road transport, as a cheaper upfront cost and significantly lower running costs combine to make electric cars increasingly attractive to buyers.

Bex Kennett, the head of new car at Autotrader, said: " ...carmakers had been forced into historically high levels of discounting earlier this year” as they tried to increase electric sales. However, their efforts appear to have been aided by the war in Iran, which has caused a rise in petrol and diesel prices. Car sales platforms across Europe have reported large increases in inquiries for electric cars from consumers keen to cut their energy costs.

Gurjeet Grewal, the chief executive of Octopus Electric Vehicles, the car division of the energy company, said the term milestone “gets thrown around a lot, but this really is one. For the first time, EVs are cheaper than petrol cars on upfront cost – removing one of the biggest barriers to switching.

“They’ve long been cheaper to run, and now they’re cheaper to buy, too. Add in growing competition and more choice, and it’s clear the direction of travel: electric is the obvious option for drivers.”

However, the transition to electric cars in the UK still faces some barriers. Households across the country who do not have driveways are reliant on the public charging network, which remains patchy in some areas.

Given the strategic risks revealed by the Iranian war, the government should regard the EV subsidies as money well spent. 

In Australia, the BYD ATTO 1, shown below, is comparable in size and performance to the petrol Suzuki Swift, and is roughly the same price (AUD $24,000, which includes a 10% sales tax), without subsidies.  An A$3,000 subsidy for EVs costing less than $30,000 would sharply accelerate EV sales in Australia, as it is in the UK.

The BYD ATTO 1, Australia's cheapest EV.

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UK summer hottest on record

 From The Guardian

The UK has had its hottest summer on record, the Met Office has said, after the country faced four heatwaves in a single season.

The mean temperature for meteorological summer, which encompasses the months of June, July and August, was 16.1C (60.98F), which is significantly above the current record of 15.76C set in 2018.

All five of the hottest summers on record have now occurred since 2000 – a clear signal of the global heating that scientists say is resulting from increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

The Met Office said it had conducted a rapid analysis that found the record-breaking summer temperatures had been made about 70 times more likely because of human-induced climate change.

Dr Mark McCarthy, the agency’s head of climate attribution, said: “In a natural climate, we could expect to see a summer like 2025 with an approximate return period of around 340 years, while in the current climate we could expect to see these sorts of summers roughly one in every five years.  Our analysis suggests that while 2025 has set a new record, we could plausibly experience much hotter summers in our current and near-future climate and shows how what would have been seen as extremes in the past are becoming more common in our changing climate.”

The latest record beats the last by a wide margin. This year’s average temperature was just over a third of a degree hotter than 2018’s previous record, while temperatures for the other four of the five hottest summers on record differed by just hundredths of a degree. Overall the mean temperature was 1.51C above the long-term meteorological average.

June and July had hot weather, with four heatwaves including days above 30C. There has been very little rain across much of the country, with England experiencing what the government has called “nationally significant” water shortfalls. Much of England is under a hosepipe ban as reservoirs, rivers and groundwater run dry.

Although the summer has been consistently warm, there has not been extreme heat. The highest temperature recorded to date for 2025 was 35.8C in Faversham, Kent, on 1 July, well short of the UK’s all-time high of 40.3C, set in July 2022.

But in June alone there were two heatwaves, making it the hottest June on record for England and the second hottest for the UK overall. A third heatwave in July and a fourth in August pushed the overall average temperature for the summer into record-breaking territory.

Towards the end of June, scientists calculated that the heat endured by people in the south-east of England had been made 100 times more likely by the climate crisis.

Meteorologists have said this year’s consistent warmth was driven by dry ground from spring, high-pressure systems, and unusually warm seas around the UK, and minimum temperatures had been exceptionally above average.

The Met Office scientist Dr Emily Carlisle said: “These conditions have created an environment where heat builds quickly and lingers, with both maximum and minimum temperatures considerably above average.”

 

Treacherous

By Morten Moreland  

[It is in reference to the "trade agreement" signed by the UK after Trump raised tariffs.  It doesn't pay to bow down to bullies]

UK emissions fall to 1872 level

From Helen Czerski 

The news has been more than a bit grim of late, so hooray for @carbonbrief.org providing some genuine and really meaningful **good** news: the UK's carbon emissions in 2024 were the lowest since 1872, because demand for fossil fuels just keeps decreasing. www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-uk-...

In 1872 the UK population was 31.9 million, today it's 65 million.  So emissions per capita have more than halved since 1872.  

Some emissions have obviously been "outsourced" to China, but only some.  Emissions have fallen 54% since 1990, while GDP has grown 84%.   Carbon Brief points out that:

Consumption-based emissions, including CO2 embedded in imported goods and services, were increasing until 2007, but have since fallen at a similar rate to territorial emissions.

and also that: 

Oil demand [in 2024] fell 1.4% despite increased road traffic, largely due to the rise in the number of EVs. The UK’s 1.4m EVs, 0.8m plug-in hybrids and 76,000 electric vans cut oil-related emissions by at least 5.9MtCO2e, Carbon Brief analysis finds, only slightly offset by around 0.5MtCO2e from higher electricity demand.

Europe and the UK have significantly reduced CO2 emissions.  Unfortunately, China's (and other countries') emissions continue to rise.  China produces 25% of the world's emissions, but its installation of wind and solar in electricity generation, and skyrocketing sales of EVs mean that emissions may peak this year.  Which means that at last, world emissions will start to fall.  This is only the first step, since they need to fall by a lot more than, say, 1% a year to avoid climate catastrophe.  But at least they will be falling, not rising.  In fact, if world emissions were to fall by the UK's 3.6% in 2024, they would halve in 20 years, and fall by 75% by 2060.  Not enough but a hundred times better than the alternative.

This should be every country's target:  to cut emissions by between 3 and 4 % every year.  This will be harder than it sounds: the UK had virtually no economic growth in 2024, which made cutting emissions easier.  Yet the progressive move towards green electricity and green transport means that growth and emissions are being inexorably decoupled.  Economic output can rise without causing fossil fuel use to rise.

It's possible.  Now let's do it.

‘UK-first’ battery train outperforms diesel

From Electrek

A “UK-first” intercity battery trial train proved that single battery technology can outperform diesel engines cost-effectively.

Hitachi Rail, Angel Trains, and TransPennine Express just wrapped up the trial, which took place in the north of England. It proved that powerful batteries offer significant benefits for emissions, fuel savings, and air quality.

Hitachi has already rolled out passenger battery trains in Japan and Europe, like the Masaccio hybrid in Italy. The intercity battery trial train in the UK demonstrated that the 700 kW battery could push the train past 75 mph and power it for over 70 km. The battery matches the weight of a diesel engine and is installed in the same undercarriage space, ensuring no risk of track degradation and no impact on the passenger environment.

The battery trial train delivered better-than-expected results in fuel savings, cutting fuel costs by 35-50%. One key way it achieved this was with an “Eco-mode” where the battery fully powered sections of the route, showing that the technology is more than ready for real-world use.

This success gives Hitachi the green light to move on to a full intercity battery-electric train, with an estimated range of 100-150 km. That would allow significant stretches of non-electrified routes to go battery-powered, avoiding the need for expensive infrastructure like overhead wires in tunnels or stations.

I put this article here because it's interesting, and suggests ways forward to cut emissions from land transport, which, including cars and light trucks, contributes roughly 20% to total greenhouse gas emissions (CO2 and nitrous oxides).  But it's not very clear, and further research didn't help.  For example, the writer talks about a 700 kW battery.  Did they mean 700 kWh, which is the measure of stored power (for example, a typical EV has 50–70 kWh of stored electricity) or what they said, 700 kW, which is a measure of output at any moment?  Also, the article gives the impression that the train was run completely on battery, than says, "“Eco-mode” where the battery fully powered sections of the route".  Does this mean that some parts of the route were not fully powered by the battery, but also used diesel?  Is this new train a hybrid?

Never mind.  The sharp drop in fuel costs (35-50%) shows that not only is the battery technology environmentally better, but it will also save money.  I've talked about bi-mode trains, which are diesel-electric when there is no overhead wire (or third rail) but switch to electric when there is an alternate power source.  Adding batteries to the mix would make these trains even more flexible, and allow them to be integrated into the train network more effectively.  I've also discussed battery-powered trains, here, and here.   I'm also going to be doing a piece on NSW's new bi-mode diesel/electric trains.  Keep an eye out for it.

I can't help thinking that a carbon tax would concentrate minds wonderfully, and we'd see much more rapid progress with battery and bi-mode trains if we had one.

Brexit is doomed

 From Truth to Power

Only 1 in 7 of 18-24 year olds supports Brexit.  And only 1 in 10 of 25-45 year olds supports it.  The rest want to return to the EU. 

UK GDP is 4 to 5 percent lower than it should have been.  Average family incomes in Bulgaria and Poland are on the brink of exceeding those in Britain.  

Brexit has been a massive failure.

GB fossil fuel share drops to record low

(To be precise, the share of fossil fuels in electricity generation has dropped to a record low)


From The Guardian

The share of Great Britain’s electricity generated by burning fossil fuels plummeted to unprecedented lows this month, ahead of plans to begin running a “zero-carbon grid” for short periods from next year.

Electricity generated by burning gas and coal fell to a record low of just 2.4% for an hour at lunchtime on Monday 15 April, according to an analysis of data from National Grid’s electricity system operator (ESO).

The same data has revealed that earlier this month the share of fossil fuels in the generation mix taken over an entire day fell to a record low of 6.4%, on 5 April.

The findings lend support to the aims of the ESO to begin the “groundbreaking and world-leading” step of running a zero-carbon electricity grid for Great Britain for short periods from next year.

The new records mark a dramatic shift from 15 years ago, when gas and coal power plants made up 75% of the electricity mix, while renewables accounted for only 2%. Last year only a third of Great Britain’s electricity came from fossil fuels, compared with 40% from renewables.

The research, undertaken by Carbon Brief, found a dramatic increase in the frequency of short periods when fossil fuels made up less than 5% of Great Britain’s electricity generation in recent months.

There have been 75 half-hour periods in the year to date when fossil fuels have accounted for less than 5% of the country’s electricity needs, more than four times the number recorded last year. Just five ultra-low carbon half hours were recorded in 2022, the analysis said.

The new record low took place amid a glut of renewable energy, according to the ESO. At the time, wind power made up about half of electricity generation while solar power accounted for just over 30%. Britain’s nuclear reactors generated more than 13%.

UK coal use falls to 1957 level

From Carbon Brief

The amount of UK electricity generated from fossil fuels fell 22% year-on-year in 2023 to the lowest level since 1957, Carbon Brief analysis reveals.

The 104 terawatt hours (TWh) generated from fossil fuels in 2023 is the lowest level in 66 years. Back then, Harold Macmillan was the UK prime minister and the Beatles’ John Lennon and Paul McCartney had just met for the first time.

Electricity from fossil fuels has now fallen by two-thirds (199TWh) since peaking in 2008. Within that total, coal has dropped by 115TWh (97%) and gas by 80TWh (45%).

These declines have been caused by the rapid expansion of renewable energy (up six-fold since 2008, some 113TWh) and by lower electricity demand (down 21% since 2008, some 83TWh).

As a result, fossil fuels made up just 33% of UK electricity supplies in 2023 – their lowest ever share – of which gas was 31%, coal just over 1% and oil just below 1%.

Low-carbon sources made up 56% of the total, of which renewables were 43% and nuclear 13%. The remainder is from imports (7%) and other sources (3%), such as waste incineration.

Overall, the electricity generated in the UK in 2023 had the lowest-ever carbon intensity, with an average of 162g of carbon dioxide per kilowatt hour (gCO2/kWh).

This remains a long way from the government’s ambition for 95% low-carbon electricity by 2030 – just seven years from now – and a fully decarbonised grid by 2035.

[Read more here]

UK's average PMI slumps

 Much the same story as Europe's "flash" PMI:  deepening recession, flagging services, "blip" over .....

114% increase in UK rooftop solar

From Solar Power Portal

The Microgeneration Certification Scheme (MCS), has released its latest data showing that 130,596 solar photovoltaic (PV) systems were installed in UK homes last year – a 114% rise from 2021.

This figure made up the majority of the total 163,341 MCS certified installations, marking the highest annual deployment since 2015, which saw 200,000 installations.

The standards organisation for domestic renewable energy and heating technology also reported the highest annual increase of certified contractors in 2022 at 780 – more than double the net increase from 2020 to 2021.

67% of these contractors are certified for electricity generating technologies, demonstrating the growing demand for domestic solar in the UK.

Battery storage had a similarly promising year. Launching its battery installation standard in November 2021, MCS reported that 50 certified contractors and 269 installation were reported in 2022.

“We're pleased to report our second strongest year since 2015, illustrating the sector’s upward trajectory. We had an incredibly busy 2022 and the data confirms the progress we’ve made. The future of small-scale renewable installations is becoming increasingly important, and we continue to play a crucial role in the decarbonisation of the UK's homes,” said Ian Rippin, CEO at MCS.

“The growth we’ve seen in domestic renewable electricity systems over the past year may also give some insight into the growing consumer reliance on home-grown energy in the UK during the cost-of-living crisis. As electricity prices skyrocket, more people are turning to renewable solutions to generate their own power at home.”

The plunge at the end of 2016 was because of the end of a subsidy incentive.
The spike in March 2019 was due to the announced closure of a feed-in tariff scheme.

 

2022 was Scotland and the UK's hottest year

From the BBC

The Met Office has confirmed that 2022 was Scotland's hottest year on record.

The average temperature was 8.5C, beating the previous record of 8.43C in 2014.

Across the UK, the average annual temperature last year passed 10C for the first time at 10.03C - topping the previous high of 9.88C in 2014.

A study by Met Office scientists has concluded that human-induced climate change has made record annual temperatures 160 times more likely.

All four nations set records for heat in 2022, with England seeing the highest average temperature at 10.94C, followed by Wales (10.23C), Northern Ireland (9.85C) and then Scotland (8.50C).

The year also saw Scotland set its highest ever daily temperature, when it hit 34.8C (94.6F) at Charterhall in the Borders on 19 July.

Dr Mark McCarthy, head of the Met Office National Climate Information Centre, said: "Although an arbitrary number, the UK surpassing an annual average temperature of 10C is a notable moment in our climatological history.

"This moment comes as no surprise, since 1884 all the 10 years recording the highest annual temperature have occurred from 2003.

"It is clear from the observational record that human-induced global warming is already impacting the UK's climate."

The latest data shows that 15 of the UK's top 20 warmest years on record have all occurred this century - with the entire top 10 within the past two decades.

The Met Office said that a UK mean temperature of 10C would have been expected once in 500 years in a natural climate - before humans started producing the emissions that are responsible for climate change through activities such as burning fossil fuels.

But it said this was now likely to occur every three to four years.

[Read more here]

2022 warmest year in UK

From The BBC

The Met Office has said 2022 will be the warmest year on record for the UK.

According to provisional figures, every month was hotter than average, with the exception of December when the UK experienced a notable cold snap.

The year's average temperature will likely beat the previous all-time high of 9.88C, set in 2014.

The exact mean temperature is set to be confirmed in the new year but the Met office said the consistent heat this year had been noteworthy.

Dr Mark McCarthy, a senior climate scientist at the Met Office, said the provisional figures are in line with the "genuine impacts we expect as a result of human-induced climate change".

"Although it doesn't mean every year will be the warmest on record, climate change continues to increase the chances of increasingly warm years over the coming decades," Dr McCarthy added.

A spell of heatwaves in June led to the UK experiencing its fourth warmest summer on record, as temperatures broke the 40C mark for the first time.

During the intense heat in July, the Met Office issued its first ever red warning for extreme heat. The temperatures seen in mid-July would have been "extremely unlikely in the pre-industrial period - the era before humanity started emitting lots of greenhouse gases," Dr McCarthy explained.

"As we have seen in the first two weeks of December, our climate is still subject to notable cold spells during the winter season, but our observational data show these have generally become less frequent and less severe as our climate warms," he said.

Last week, the Met Office said it was expecting 2023 to be warmer than this year, and one of the hottest on record.

Predictions suggest it will be the 10th year in a row where the global temperature is at least 1C above average.

Scientific evidence shows that climate change is driving up the global temperature, and governments around the world have promised to cut emissions to keep temperature rises below 1.5C.

In a separate report, the National Trust warned that extreme weather seen throughout the year has set a benchmark for what a typical year could be like.

The charity said high temperatures, drought and back-to-back storms have created major challenges for nature in years to come.

In its annual review, it said this year was a "stark illustration" of the difficulties many UK species could face without more action to tackle climate change.

The hot summer and months of low rainfall dried up rivers, fragile chalk streams and ponds, damaged crops and natural habitats, and fuelled wildfires that destroyed landscapes, the charity said.

The National Trust's climate change adviser, Keith Jones, said there was "no escaping" how challenging this year's weather had been for nature.

"Drought, high temperatures, back-to-back storms, unseasonal heat, the recent cold snap and floods means nature, like us, is having to cope with a new litany of weather extremes," he said.

He added weather experts were predicting the future would see more torrential downpours, along with very dry and hot summers.

The light-weight

 By Graeme Keyes

Trussonomics

By Martyn Turner

 

 

The FT's trenchant Brexit video

Long time readers of this blog will know that I have always thought that Brexit was a disastrously stupid policy.  This trenchant video by the FT (Financial Times -- not known for its far-left nature) demonstrates just how bad it has been for the UK economy.  Britain is poorer because of Brexit.  As the video says, "it's like a slow leak from a tyre".  Then the neo-liberal ideologues in the Conservative (Tory) Party produced a budget which suddenly led to the tyre blowing out.  Disastrous.  And since no one can admit just how bad it is, it's hard to see how it can be fixed.  Ideology has triumphed over pragmatism, leading to the UK going backward.

UK and Europe PMIs plunge

 Another set of "flash" PMIs for October.  And they plunged.

This is before the winter fuel crunch, before the full impact of plunging real incomes because of surging inflation, before the impact of rising interest rates.  And in the UK, before the dreadful impact of a demented budget on mortgage rates, the Pound, inflation, confidence.  Last gasp of the unhinged neoliberal cult, the quite dotty belief in "trickle down"?  Let's hope so.  

Will this break Europe's resolve to maintain sanctions on Russia?  Oil and gas prices are already falling, so the actual European and impending global recessions are going to do just as much damage to Russia.   My guess is that the Russian economy is about to fall much faster than Europe's, the UK's or the rest of the world's.  Patience, mes vieux!  Expect insincere Russian "peace" overtures soon. 

Perfect for short stays

 Just listed

America, Britain, Russia, China -- down the gurgler

(Source)

From The New Daily

Has there ever been a time when the world’s four leading nations were in a bigger mess than they are now?

Each, in its own way, is destroying itself, although the chosen methods are all a bit different. But it always has to do with leadership.

And while it makes those of us who managed to sack our ratbags [Australia has voted out its right-wing LNP coalition]look stable by comparison, that won’t help if the US, Britain, China and Russia keep going down the paths they’re on. Their misery will be everyone’s.

Two of them – Russia and China – are being brought undone by autocracy while the two liberal democracies are either undermining the functioning of democracy itself (America) or are floundering in economic fallacy (the UK).

Undone by autocracy

The impending downfall, or at best disorder, of these four is the second emergency the world faces, the first being global warming.

Russia is destroying itself with the most disastrous invasion since Napoleon took his army into Russia in winter.

There is no scenario in which Russia comes out of the Ukraine war in anything other than a shambles, especially if Putin is unwise enough to drop an atomic bomb somewhere in Ukraine.

Win or lose, the revulsion over Russia’s war crimes will isolate and cripple the country for years, if not decades; the only positive outcome is if Putin is overthrown quickly and his replacement helps Ukraine to rebuild.

China is doing it by doubling down on autocracy and appointing Xi Jinping for a third term as president and general secretary of the Communist Party.

Financial Times columnist Martin Wolf argued convincingly last week that this is a “tragic error”, and that the “despot will become increasingly isolated and defensive, even paranoid”. The next 10 years of Xi, Wolf says, will be worse than the last.

Peter Coy in The New York Times calls Xi the second coming of Mao Zedong, whom China took decades to get over, and was finally getting somewhere when Xi came along.

Xi is now dispensing with the consent of the governed, the basis of all political stability.

China’s zero-COVID policy is an example (along with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine) of the folly that goes unchallenged when you have a despotic leader.

China is no longer a high-growth economy and has the added problem of an ageing population and declining workforce.

But it’s not just those things dragging down China. Its reliance on investment to power its economy is backfiring – its growth is top down and debt-funded, not bottom up and consumer driven, which is the only solid basis for economic stability.

And with Xi’s demand that Taiwan must be incorporated into the motherland, China is flirting with crushing sanctions and the end of its export economy.

Financial strife

The UK is doing it first through Brexit, and now the misguided attachment to neoliberal ideology of its new prime minister, elected by 81,326 Conservative Party members, or 0.12 per cent of the UK’s population, and who they are all stuck with until January 2025.

It’s a lesson that a functioning democracy requires an electable, responsible opposition, which the UK did not have in 2019, resulting in a landslide for the dishevelled Boris Johnson, who then had to be sacked for repeated misdemeanours.

Maybe Liz Truss can turn things around, including her own staunch ideas, but that seems very unlikely. She dumped the worst of the tax cuts, it’s true, but apart from that she is still accelerating up an economic cul-de-sac.

And it’s not just this term of Parliament: The UK’s GDP growth was more or less zero for 20 years before the pandemic.

Why? Because of austerity imposed by a succession of conservative governments, including ones labelled Labour.

It turns out that zero public investment and cutbacks to government spending to fund tax cuts equal zero economic growth.

Truss said at the Conservative Party conference that she has three priorities – growth, growth and growth – but saying it don’t make it so.

Last week The Economist wrote: “If the prime minister realises how much trouble she is in, she is not showing it … the risk is growing that a bodged set of tax cuts will be followed by a cartoonish mix of deregulation and posturing.”

America, O America

And finally, America, O America. Its downfall is disguised by the strength of the US dollar, suggesting relative economic success.

Normally a declining empire would also have a declining currency, like ancient Rome and modern UK, but if you were just looking at the US dollar, up 23 per cent in 12 months, you would think America is at the peak of its powers.

But it’s an illusion – America is committing suicide by splitting itself in two and seems in no mood for reconciliation.

Donald Trump got 47 per cent of the vote in 2020 and still has a 41.6 per cent approval rating, even though he’s an obvious crook.

Two-thirds of Republicans want Trump back as president and 70 per cent think Joe Biden did not legitimately win the 2020 election. And as I mentioned in this column last week, half of American Republicans still think Democrat leaders are paedophiles!

The US is as divided and ungovernable as the most tribal African nations, and this is now becoming reflected in its institutions.

Specifically the Supreme Court will be under the control of right-wing extremists for decades unless Biden increases the number of judges, which seems unlikely, and has itself become a kind of second legislature. The constitutional separation of powers is now both meaningless, since the court is itself a political body, and a liability.

As Edward Luce wrote in the Financial Times last week: “Hostility between the two Americas has created an existential mindset that has made an albatross of its constitution.”

The only reason the United States looks remotely OK and its currency is doing well is that its rivals look worse.

Without a national electoral commission like Australia, the US has to guard its democracy from the Republicans’ concerted efforts to subvert it, and reach some kind of agreement on both sides of politics that the other side is not an evil enemy seeking to destroy the country.

Without it, the place will remain paralysed and divided, and maybe something much worse given the 400 million or so guns that they have.

How fantastic it is to live in Australia, where bad governments and prime ministers get thrown out.

And although we have some pretty ferocious arguments, and have made a mess of energy policy as a result, most of us don’t regard the political opposition as an enemy or disagreement as existential … at least since Tony Abbott was tossed out.

Unfortunately, we are spectators to the efforts at self-destruction going on elsewhere, and will be participants in their misery when they eventually succeed.

Alan Kohler writes twice a week for The New Daily. He is also editor in chief of Eureka Report and finance presenter on ABC news

The incredible shrinking pound

 By Ben Jennings

Honey, I shrunk the quids

Extreme neoliberal dogma causes a crash in the pound.  The new half-witted PM of the UK (Liz Truss) and the A-level (last class in high school) Chancellor of the Exchequer (Kasi Kwarteng) have cut taxes on the rich and on companies, with the result that financial markets finally realised that tax cuts don't pay for themselves, and sold off the pound and gilts (UK government bonds).  An old-fashioned sterling crisis.  Who would have thought that it has been brought on by the Conservative Party, supposedly better economic managers than Labour?

For non-Brits/Ozzies/South Africans, a quid is a pound (the currency, not the measure of weight).