Britain jumps into bed with Palantir in £1.5B defense pact The UK has struck a defense deal with US spy-tech biz Palantir, which the government says will unlock £1.5 billion ($2 billion) of investment in Britain. The arrangement emerged during the fanfare of US president Donald Trump's state visit to the UK, and accompanies a string of announcements by American tech A-listers, with …
already there. Know anyone who can build a car these days? Or any factories? Where are all the IT jobs that there are apparently "massive shortages" in? Even that tiny swedish contract for ships can only be fulfilled by not building any for us.
The last govt even sold our last virgin steel production site to the Chinese (an ACTUAL enemy) for £1 & then they went on to try to close it making us even more reliant on them for steel!
this country is a fucking joke. You could 1/2 people's electricity bills overnight by pulling renewables out of the international gas price link but the Govt won't do that because it will actually benefit normal plebs & itll upset BP, Shell & the Saudis. Why did my electricity prices go up star the russian scum attacked Ukraine when its 100% renewable & literally uses ZERO gas? Yet costs at the moment 1/3 to produce as gas powered electricity?
And don't get me started on the £billions being sobered by government to the indian IT industry while here people can't find jobs
why would cutting 50% off my electricity bill annoy me?
as to the net zero thing.... since 1990 GDP has increased by 84%. In that time we've reduced our CO2 emissions to levels below the start of the Industrial Revolution... so how is 1/2 price electricity to consumers & british business a bad thing for anyone but gas dealers?
>why would cutting 50% off my electricity bill annoy me?
It wouldn't - not unless you're a Net Zero fanatic.
>how is 1/2 price electricity a bad thing for anyone but gas dealers?
It isn't. Indeed it isn't even a bad thing for gas dealers as it's irrelevant to them whether or not the UK links the price of its electricity to the wholesale price of gas.
Every single post has a snarl about net-zero fanatic this or that.
You want to argue net zero policy has all sorts of perversions of intention attached, we agree, but we're ALSO trying to preserve the liberal capitalist system so compromises must be made.
Now, if you have proof that CO2 levels don't actually matter I'm willing to listen. But just as we're made of water and we can get water poisoning if we consume too much water, you need to assert an acceptable level.
The latest human studies on brain function contends that after simulating CO2 levels at 610 PPM (parts per million) in the air we lose a fair amount of cognition.
What's your limit? 590?
>Every single post has a snarl about net-zero fanatic this or that.
Read the comments again mate cos you're seeing things that just aren't there.
There're several uses of the term "net-zero fanatics" but there's zero snarling going on. Term is just being used matter of factually to refer to people who are, well, net-zero fanatics.
> Read the comments again mate cos you're seeing things that just aren't there.
Then you need to pick your words more carefully.
You still haven't answered my other part either. How much CO2 is acceptable for human health in your opinion from what you have seen?
Seems some commentators here clearly don't understand how the UK warped electricity market works - or maybe they just don't care to understand.
It's a horribly & deliberately complex web of subsidies, contracts for difference payments, carbon taxes, green levies, and other sleights of hand, all to prop up & subsidize net zero technologies, principally wind farms and solar farms. Sweep the green subsidies away and UK electricity prices would half.
30 years ago there was a good argument for subsidizing wind to get the technology kick-started, but by the time the issues with wind became clear (2005ish) subsidizing further construction should have stopped, instead it's increased massively. There never was any good argument for subsidizing solar in the UK.
As the AC you're replying too, I'll respond in saying that your response is much more reasonable.
I'll admit I don't know the detail as much as you do, and I'm sure there are at least some scams going on.
However, your reference to "net-zero fanatics" is a typical right wing term designed to smear anyone who is in favour of reducing dependency on fossil fuels. As you seem to actually know some stuff on the subject, using that term does you no favours, as it makes you come across as a "drill-baby-drill", "climate change is a hoax" moron - the replies from others here show that it's not just me you give that impression.
>All the climate denying fossil fuel fanbois are right wing.
Of course! Obvious really when you think about it. Nasty Nazis the lot of them. Damn them all and anyone else who denies the climate is changing to irrelevance.
But what then is the politics of those sad serious souls who recognise the climate is changing but think the UK's response to it is totally utterly suicidally wrong?
Couldn't agree more. A complex web of nonsense to screw consumers out of their money -- just like the complex web of subsidy, fuggery, bribery, corruption and arse which characterises the fossil fuel industries and their relations with government - and always has. How about we sweep all of the subsidies, market distortions mechanisms and twattery from all sources of energy provision and watch the long-subsidised, largely wasteful and incompetent petrogas corporatists dissa-fucking-pear. Let's level the playing for real, not just for silly propaganda purposes. I hope you get paid by the post, by the way, rather than by their efficacy. Lang may yer lung reek.
Most people bought the false narrative about tax, or that having repeat clients - normally a sign of business success - was somehow dodgy. The real purpose was to stop individuals and teams (note the rarely mentioned 5% ownership rule) leaving big consultancies to deliver the same work cheaper, cutting out the middleman. Workers were easily manipulated: they compared themselves - a £50k employee of the client - to a contractor on £500/day and saw unfairness, while ignoring that the consultancy’s £60k employee was billed to the client at £1,500/day. That forces the client to pay more, which is why their own staff earn less. Now, with independents gone, there’s no competition - and consultancies are exempt from IR35. Downvote if you like, but that’s cutting off your nose to spite your face. Before, if a consultancy underpaid you or an employer treated you badly, you could walk away and start your own business on your own terms. Now that route is almost impossible. The result is a captive market: wages stagnate, skills stagnate, and the big players skim the cream while avoiding tax - and workers were duped into cheering their own loss of bargaining power.
You could 1/2 people's electricity bills overnight by pulling renewables out of the international gas price link but the Govt won't do that because it will actually benefit normal plebs & itll upset BP, Shell & the Saudis.
I'm sorry but that's just wrong. Net zero subsidies are what's keeping our energy prices high in the UK. Gas prices are now lower than they were prior to the Ukraine war. All the numbers have been crunched here should anyone care to read the details:
https://www.netzerowatch.com/all-papers/why-have-electricity-bills-risen
Regardless, renewables are not the answer. Do you have any idea how much energy is required to manufacture solar panels, for example? That's why they're all made in China - the place which opens multiple coal fired power stations weekly and is, as you've correctly identified earlier in your post, our enemy. Solar panels have a lifetime of 25 years. Just imagine the eye-watering costs involved in replacing all the existing infrastructure never mind the acres and acres of fertile farmland that are soon set to be coated with glass!
It's time to face facts. Europe's prosperity over the last 30 years has depended on cheap Russian gas that was used to produce high-value manufactured goods. Removing one half of this equation has simply relegated the continent to a backwater subservient to the US on one side and the rising Asian superpowers on the other.
No. Gas companies excessive profit making is what keeps the prices high.
You imply it yourself: "Gas prices are now lower than they were prior to the Ukraine war." - when gas prices went down, did the government decide to tax the gas companies more to give subsidies to alternative power sources, or did the gas companies simply not lower the prices again?
This is rhetorical - you know the answer.
By the way, quoting a climate change denial website funded by the fossil fuel industry, and constantly proved to post inaccurate stories does you no favours.
https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/net-zero-watch-bias-and-credibility/
Still, it's insightful - there's no clearer way of proving you have no argument than making up shit to try and win it.
Still, it's insightful - there's no clearer way of proving you have no argument than making up shit to try and win it.
Try addressing the points raised instead of resorting to expletives.
Where are we going to source the solar panels and wind turbines after Europe is even further down the road to deindustrialisation and we're in a hot war with China?
This is the reality of the situation, regardless of what you net zero ideologues believe:
Fossil fuels are the main source of energy in the world. In 2024, they accounted for over 80 percent of the global primary energy consumption. Renewable energy consumption has doubled over the past five years, but these energy sources still play a comparatively small role in the global energy industry. In 2024, renewable energy and hydropower combined contributed only 15 percent of the primary energy mix. Meanwhile, coal, oil, and natural gas production has been increasing since the COVID-19 slump in 2020.
https://www.statista.com/topics/4549/primary-energy-worldwide/
> you net zero ideologues believe:
There you go again. Says it all right there.
Again, stop trying to equate those who are concerned with climate change and sensible reduction in CO2 releases, with some kind of naive ideological "ban all fossil fuels tomorrow" person.
There is a difference - your continuing attempt to class us all as nutjobs is what makes you lose the argument.. Just like if I said all right-wingers are Nazis. It's dumb.
And as such, quoting an article about the current usage of fossil fuels is totally irrelevant.
It's a classic straw man - make the opposition into something they're not, and ridicule them for it.
These people are not arguing in good faith. It doesn't matter how reasonable you are, they will still simply repeat the same nonsense. I have never understood why so many people who are clearly barely qualified to be working in IT seem to believe they are qualified to correct the opinions of 99.9% of experts in *any* field, right the world's wrongs while massaging their massive egos (and whatever else they are also massaging).
to those interested as the reform voting co2 suckers won't believe it...2023 costs for energy generation according to Imperial college...
average renewables £41-£48/MWh
average gas - £128/MWh
so the linking my bills to the international price of gas is really really annoying!
>we're in a hot war with China?
Who exactly would be in this hot war? US hegemony over Europe, its place "leading"/"directing" the "free world"/"the West" depended on its military (mainly nuclear) capabilities. Given the utter chaos the US is descending into, how many Europeans really believe that if they were attacked by Russia or China, the US would actually do something, anything to protect them. I do not think anyone in the world really believes that any more, do they? And that is why the US empire is about to fall. The chances of the US dominating the second half of the twenty-first century as it did the second half of the twentieth and the first half of the twenty-first are getting remoter by the tweet/truth social twit.
>No. Gas companies excessive profit making is what keeps the prices high.
I'm not the AC you were replying to (and being shamefully rude to as well) but I'll try and answer what you are saying - for others who might be interested as well as for you ..
So, absolutely not. As the price of gas has fallen back to pre 2022 levels the price asked per MW by the gas generators has indisputably fallen with it - though not by as much as the price as gas has fallen and that is because the govt has since 2022 increased the carbon tax it imposes on gas.
Even so, even with the increased carbon tax, if all our electricity was generated from gas then our bills right now would be substantially lower than they are and reason they're not is because the uk electricity market uses a marginal pricing system. And the way the marginal pricing system works is the price paid to the highest bidder (bidders are the generators) is the price paid to all bidders, and since gas generators are always the highest bidders in the uk market because their marginal costs are significant compared to nuclear (small) and renewables (almost zero), it is therefore the price that is paid to the gas generators that is the price paid to all generators.
This though is a problem for the renewable generators because although their marginal costs are near zero they have considerable (often insane) capital costs to repay and even when the price paid per MW is high as it was in 2022 the renewable generators hardly ever earn enough from selling MW's to get the income they need to meet their commitments, which is why the various subsidy schemes exist, and year on year the cost of those subsidy schemes has ballooned as a) the size of the renewable generator sector has increased and b) the scale of the subsidies offered has increased to encourage even more renewable projects to be built.
Overall result is as the price of gas generated electricity falls, the subsidies paid to renewable generators increases to compensate, with the net result being the price consumers pay for electricity hardly changes.
Reducing UK CO2 output is a good thing over all. It might a drop in the ocean but it's a good thing generally.
The only way to reduce this substantially is to switch the majority of energy use in the UK to electrical energy since only electrical energy can be generated directly from non-CO2 producing sources in meaningful amounts.
So in principle that is great, get everyone in EVs and using electricity for heating and cooking and bish bosh the UK is a CO2 hero.
And how do our political masters aim to do this? By ensuring electricity is 4-5x the price of CO2 emitting energy sources then looking around shocked when the population (on 60% less money in real terms than 25yr ago) doesn't rush to make the change.
I'd also note that my supplier just sent me a nice email to say that the price cap is going up by 2%, which doesn't sound so bad, then it gives me new tariff rates which are 18% higher across the board.
I'm no mathmatical genious but I think 18 is more than 2.
Received my supplier letter this morning. Standing up 4%, offpeak up 2%, onpeak up 2% (55.874p 16.014p 35.103p inc vat). I'm with EDF.
If you're up 18% are you perhaps with Octopus? I've heard they're massively jacking prices for many of their tariffs for profitability reasons.
Reducing UK CO2 output is a good thing over all. It might a drop in the ocean but it's a good thing generally.
What matters is the world's CO2 output because we all share one atmosphere. Crippling our industries by stopping the use of clean natural gas, which is already under our feet and beneath the sea, in favour of shipping it in from abroad as expensive LNG, using more CO2 in the process, is insane. Getting China to build everything for us using filthy coal-fired power stations is also insane.
Net zero simply means the masses in the West getting poorer through industrial job losses and horrendous green taxes, all the while INCREASING CO2 outputs globally for the aforementioned reasons.
Fortunately, even Mad Red Ed, the pound shop Marxist, has finally got the message and Labour is in the process of yet another screeching U-turn, this time regarding North Sea drilling.
Ed Miliband is poised to reverse Labour’s ban on new oil and gas drilling amid warnings from union bosses that net zero risks crushing British industry.
The Energy Secretary is preparing to soften a flagship pledge made in his party’s election manifesto not to “issue new licences to explore new fields” in the North Sea after companies blamed the policy for a string of production cuts and job losses.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/09/21/miliband-poised-for-u-turn-on-north-sea-drilling-ban/
>Fortunately, even Mad Red Ed, the pound shop Marxist, has finally got the messag
I'm not sure though that he will have got the message of his on volition. I suspect he's been told to do it by Starmer and all we're going to see is a token relaxation of policy. My worry is if as is speculated Starmer gets the heave-ho next spring/summer, it's not going to be the much talked about Burnham who'll replace him, but Milliband we'll get as PM.
At a time most other countries have realised that using foreign countries to run their infrastructure is a bad idea and a looking to replace Big Tech with home grown alternatives that aren't beholden to the whims of a foreign power, the UK doubles down... This can only go well.
I always remember from the Iraq War when the british bombed an Iraqui civilian bunker & I think it was Jeremy Bowen on site reporting on it. Never saw a war reporter looking so pale as they pulled out bodies of women & kids.
It was blamed on "faulty intelligence from the US", finding out Palantir were the guys doing a lot of the "intelligence" at the time, was depressingly not a surprise.
As ever the UK is a ponzi scheme designed to shovel money to the rich, regardless of which country theyre from.
I will never understand people who simp for Saddam, the man was a monster.
That's a given, however it in no way justified the Second Gulf War which lead to the deaths of 600,000+ Iraqis and resulted in a failed state, the consequences of which haunt the world today, e.g. the rise of ISIS and the resurgence of Iran, after its main adversary in the region was eliminated.
The US and its lackeys went into Iraq on entirely false pretenses since Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11 and also did not possess any WMDs. In terms of legality it was every bit as questionable as Putin's adventures in Ukraine, yet we pompously claim the moral high ground as the maintainers of the rules-based international order! Apparently sovereignty really matters unless it's a country that the West wants to invade.
False dichotomies are for losers. Hypothetical scenario: a band of bank robbers take over a bank using a bus-full of children as human shields. As the police, you decide to kill all of the children in order to then eliminate the bank robbers. What does that make you? In my book, a murdering c**t. In yours?
So, let me get this straight. US has basically decided that Russia are the victims, and decided to nix NATO entirely.
The UK and EU realise that their militaries are entirely designed around a US support role, which is for the next foreseeable half a century not a given...
So we decide that we will organise the remainder of our warfighting procurement around US cooperation at a discount, in return for investing in Copilot and ChatGPT for all.
Neat plan. Let me know how it goes.
US has basically decided
I suspect it is more like Russia decided for the US. With decades of kompromat gathering and sudden switch of many US celebrities to disseminate Russian propaganda, you can only think what they were up to behind the closed doors.
It's a complete failure of US intelligence services, focused on chasing cave people and ignoring the country is getting compromised from within.
Our intelligence services are no better. Caught in the middle of a shit creek without a paddle.
And then you think they get paid for this shambles and take salaries with straight faces.
