back to article Boris Johnson set to step down with tech legacy in tatters

As UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson prepares to resign – but stay on in a caretaker role for three months – the momentous occasion offers the opportunity to reflect on his legacy of half-baked ideas and unfinished projects. The last 24 hours in British politics can be neatly summed up by the reaction of The Economist, which …

  1. Admiral Grace Hopper
    Pirate

    Sub-sea nukes

    Rolls Royce do indeed make jet engines (and more profitably monitor, manage and maintain them) but more pertinently to the point made in the story they also make the nuclear power plants for the Royal Navy's fleet of nuclear powered submarines.

    1. Jellied Eel Silver badge

      Re: Sub-sea nukes

      Indeed. It's a national embarrassment given the UK's pioneering role in nuclear power, that the only new reactors to have gone critical in the last few decades have been the RR reactors in our Astute submarines. And I'd rather have one of those than a super yacht.

      The main problem I see with BoJo's resignation is who's going to replace him. But it there's any truth in the rumor that his energy policy had been influenced by his missus, we may back away from the disaster that has been UK energy policy.

      If we get someone pro-nuclear, we may finally see an end to neo-Luddite 'renewables' in favour of cheaper and more reliable electricity production. But it would take a brave politician to go against the 'renewables' lobby, even if scrapping 'renewable' subsidies would save consumers and businesses a lot of money. Given they're around £2-3bn+ a year, or £300+ per household, it'd probably be cheaper to deal with legal challenges for ending subsidies than continuing with them. Especially as it should be obvious that 'renewables' scammers haven't delivered on their promises.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Sub-sea nukes

        >Especially as it should be obvious that 'renewables' scammers haven't delivered on their promises.

        [citation needed]

        1. Wellyboot Silver badge

          Re: Sub-sea nukes

          According to Gridwatch, at this very moment 14:50 BST

          Wind 6Gw, Solar 7.13Gw, nuclear 4.58Gw, - GAS 13.19Gw & COAL 0.33Gw

          The wind does not blow on demand.

          1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

            Re: Sub-sea nukes

            Good citation.

            IOW renewables ≊ Gas and >> Coal which is not something I'd have expected a couple of decades ago.

            1. Jellied Eel Silver badge

              Re: Sub-sea nukes

              I like this view-

              https://gridwatch.co.uk/Wind

              Because it makes the intermittency/unreliability problem more apparent. Solar's obviously doing well at the moment, but it'll get dark in a few hours, and future people may be trying to charge millions of EVs after they're back from work.

              1. Fursty Ferret

                Re: Sub-sea nukes

                The interesting thing about The Register is that although many of the readers are clearly intelligent, they’re particularly vulnerable to confirmation bias and susceptible to propaganda and miseducation campaigns run by both foreign states and commercial organisations.

                You are quite correct that in the near future millions of people will arrive home and plug in their EVs to charge. That is where the accuracy of your claim ends. Firstly, the vast majority of people will charge on a cheaper overnight tariff. Secondly, the average commute is less than 20 miles, or 5kWh - and the car has all night to replenish this. For even cheaper rates still your car may also provide battery storage for peak hours of electricity use.

                You are also correct that sometimes the wind doesn’t blow and the sun doesn’t shine. That’s why nearly all new solar installations include 5-10kWh of battery storage. This will cover 99% of domestic electricity use and can again be recharged during periods of low grid demand.

                What you are right about is the apathy of the government towards encouraging further investment, with no subsidies; taxes on public buildings with panels; and a refusal to redistribute the feed-in tariffs more fairly.

                1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

                  Re: Sub-sea nukes

                  "the vast majority of people will charge on a cheaper overnight tariff."

                  I think that was the point being raised. The wind doesn't blow on demand and there's not much solar energy at night. If the Greens have their way, there'll be no coal, no oil, no gas and no nuclear. If you don't charge your car during the day, you ain't going anywhere in the morning. There is no significant storage tech available yet unless you assume all those cars plugged in to "charge" at night actually *are* your overnight source of electricity.

                  1. Jellied Eel Silver badge

                    Re: Sub-sea nukes

                    I think that was the point being raised. The wind doesn't blow on demand and there's not much solar energy at night.

                    Indeed. And the other issue is the idea that electricity will stay 'cheaper overnight'. That's a holdover from our traditional generation, ie incentivising 'off-peak' usage by lower price. If demand is higher at night due to people heating, eating or charging, the peak will shift, along with price.

                    Which has already been happening. Back when we integrated our last disruptive technology, nuclear, we created 'Economy 7' so nuclear sites and existing base load could run at efficient levels. But since we've stopped investing in reliable energy, 'off-peak' electrity has been getting steadily more expensive and the 'Economy 7' window shortening.

                    Which is ironic given that system was a low-cost energy storage solution that offered consumers some small benefit. All it needed was a 'Smart' meter, radio teleswitch and some boxes of bricks.. I mean storage heaters and a cheap, simple hot water tank with resistive heater.

                    Now, being technologically superior, we've spent billions on newer 'smart' meters that can't currently offer this service, and people being expected to spend £10k+ on PowerWalls or heat pumps instead.

                    1. Handlebars

                      Re: Sub-sea nukes

                      I have some doubts about wind and solar, but people could charge EVs in the daytime when the sun shines if there are chargers at their workplace. This is for commuters and it won't be so simple for tradies who drive around in the day.

                      1. Robert Carnegie Silver badge

                        Re: Sub-sea nukes

                        It shouldn't be long before your car can drop you at work and then go away to find a charger by itself.

                        1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

                          Re: Sub-sea nukes

                          If you believe the, hype, yes. I suspect true self-driving cars will be more like clean fusion power. Always n years away.

                      2. CrazyOldCatMan Silver badge

                        Re: Sub-sea nukes

                        people could charge EVs in the daytime when the sun shines if there are chargers at their workplace

                        My orkplace is looking to install chargers - You will still need to pay (via card) to use them but the rate will be subsidised.

                        1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

                          Re: Sub-sea nukes

                          "You will still need to pay (via card) to use them but the rate will be subsidised."

                          Until HMRC decide that's a taxable perk :-)

                    2. The Dogs Meevonks Silver badge

                      Re: Sub-sea nukes

                      Personally I think we need more renewable subsidies... not less. But without the EU for support... we're well and truly fucked on that front.

                      Buying a new home at the moment (it's 20yrs old) and was built just before the building regs changed in 2002.... So built to 1994 standards.

                      It needs more/better insulation in the walls and roof... the roof is easy and will cost about £500 to do. The walls trickier, as you've got to remove a few bricks and literally pull out the old stuff, then inject new insulation to fill the cavity properly (houses with at least 150mm cavity only have about 50-75mm of insulation in that era)... No idea on the cost as we won't be able to get proper quotes until we complete in August or early Sept.

                      The rear roof is just a couple of degrees of due South... so solar panels will be installed (we have them on our current property too). We know there's virtually no income generation from them anymore... but there's also no restriction on the capacity either. FiT was a max of 4kw, we've worked out based on the houses opposite that have them... we can fit at least 5 or 6kw worth of panels.

                      Because there's no FiT payments coming, only a measly few pennies from some providers that will be about £60-80 a year instead of £650-700 we currently get.... We'll be needing battery storage... Add about £3000 for a decent system that will keep the house powered for a few days, and certainly power the house overnight without issue.

                      Then we'll be adding a hot water tank, powered by the solar panels, and replacing the two showers in the ensuite and family bathroom with electric ones rather than direct from the boiler. All hot water will be disconnected from the boiler entirely... all it will be used for is central heating between Oct-Apr, and with all of the extra insulation in the house, it won't need to be on for long each time it's needed.

                      I know we're talking about close to the £20k mark to do all of that... But this is probably the last home we may ever buy.... we're selling a house worth 30% more than the one we're buying, moving to a more rural location 6 miles from the sea, 12 miles from actual mountains... So we've got a large chunk of change left over to do this and we're also going to be mortgage free (have been for a few months now)

                      But people can't be expected to do this on their own, we're simply lucky right now that we're in this position. Just like we're lucky that we're still on a fixed rate for our gas/electric until Feb next year and have escaped the burden of these excessive price rises.

                      So subsidies and grants are needed to allow people to do all of this work... especially on older homes.

                      We also need to beef up the building regs... make it so that ALL new homes must have solar panels and more eco heating systems. For too long loopholes have existed to allow developers to skirt around them.

                      Did anyone know that in previous years, there was a point where providing builders installed a certain type of more efficient boiler... they could actually REDUCE the insulation in the property... because all the had to meet was a specific energy rating.

                      Our current house was built in the late 40's after WW2... we've done as much as we can short of digging up floors to insulate them. Walls, roof, windows, solar.... We actually got a B rating for it. The new home is a very low C with potential for a B.

                      tl:dr we need more subsidies and grants to allow people to insulate and warm their homes more efficiently and not leave it down to those who get lucky and can afford the expense like we will.

            2. Alan Brown Silver badge

              Re: Sub-sea nukes

              If you go all-out, 'renewables' can slightly outproduce carbon-emitting electricity sources, whilst still requiring substantial carbon emitting backing capacity for the occasions when they can't.

              More importantly, electrical generation has historically only accounted for 30% of human carbon emissions, meaning there's a substantial gap between what renewables can produce and the electrical generation requirements for actually going carbon-free

              The first sentence of the first paragraph above is the part that the snake-oil brigade latch onto to sell windmills and solar as the one-size-fits-all solution to everything

              Nuclear isn't a luxury, it's a REQUIREMENT.

              Water-moderated nuclear power was only ever intended by the guy who developed it to be proof of concept (a laboratory glassware proof-of-concept prototype built to power the Nautilus, using uranium not because it's the best fuel but in his words "because it was what was available") and 1950s nuclear scientists would be gobsmacked to see we're still using them.

              The guy who developed that first nuclear reactor? He went on to develop a "walk-away-safe" version which was hot enough to be a drop-in-replacement for coal-burning technology (water-moderated nukes are not) and produced less than 1% of the waste of the first design. The US government killed it in 1972 because it would have divorced the civil nuclear program from its dependency on the waste products of weapons-making systems and therefore exposed uranium-producing plants to arms limitation treaties that dual-purpose plants are exempt from

              One of El Reg's own columnists was a pretty passionate pusher of the tech (RIP Lester). As a nice side effect of picking up the "better mouse trap" (which is currently being assessed in China at Wuwei), the molten-salt thorium technology removes the single biggest barrier to economic viability of rare earth mining in most parts of the world (by making thorium a saleable product instead of "dangerous radioactive waste") and would remove the effective stranglehold on supply that exists (hello cheaper magnets and other items)

              1. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

                Re: Sub-sea nukes

                Even for water-moderated reactors, there are better designs than the classic Westinghouse, such as CANDU. According to Wikipedia's list there are still around three dozen CANDU or CANDU-derived commercial reactors in use.

                Then there are other designs such as pebble-bed – apparently China has a commercial one in use. And TerraPower and CNNC were working on a commercial traveling-wave reactor until Trump's tech-transfer rules put a stop to it.

                The main problems with fission are not waste or failing safe; they're politics, primarily, and economics (financing development).

          2. Irony Deficient

            The wind does not blow on demand.

            Which “ ‘renewables’ scammers” promised that the wind does blow on demand?

            1. Wellyboot Silver badge

              Re: The wind does not blow on demand.

              Does the oft spouted 'Renewable energy can provide all we need' not imply there's always enough wind & sunshine?

            2. Jellied Eel Silver badge

              Re: The wind does not blow on demand.

              Which “ ‘renewables’ scammers” promised that the wind does blow on demand?

              That's just one of the fundamental flaws with using obsolete technology. Our ancestors went from the Age of Sail to the Age of Steam because they knew reliable power benefitted the economy.

              So the 'renewables' scumbags counter this flaw by demanding we throw billions at grid-scale batteries and grid upgrades to cover up their inadequacies. And thanks to our rigged market and regulatory capture, the massive costs of trying to make an unreliable solution reliable are passed on to consumers.

              This is why our energy costs are so high. It's got little to do with Russia, and everything to do with our insane energy policy. Because 'renewables' are unreliable, we need something for when it's dark and the wind isn't blowing. So as we've 'invested' in 'renewables', we've also had to 'invest' in CCGT gas turbines to keep our lights on. So obviously that's meant increased dependency on gas. Which was fine when gas prices were low, and it even would have been cheaper to run the backup CCGTs as primary generators, because the cost of electricity generated by CCGT was much lower than on or offshore wind.

              But for those needing citations-

              https://www.renewableuk.com/page/WindEnergy

              Which is 97% bullshit. For example-

              Onshore wind offers the most cost-effective choice for new electricity in the UK, bar none - it is cheaper than gas, nuclear, coal and other renewables. This clean, modern technology is popular with the public, regularly enjoying support levels of up to 74% according to the Government’s own opinion polls...

              ...The cost of new offshore wind has fallen by 50% since 2015 and it is now one of the lowest cost options for new power in the UK – cheaper than new gas and nuclear power.

              Which demonstrates why legal action should be simple. If RUK's bs is accurate, given we've invested in 'renewables', yet our energy costs have massively increased rather than fallen. But if this bullshit is believable, then it obviously demonstrates that wind is a mature technology, and subsidies can be cancelled.

              There's also this news-

              https://renews.biz/79003/

              In all, 10.8GW of new onshore and offshore wind, solar, tidal stream and other renewables will go ahead as a result of today’s announcement by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) of the winning bidders in CfD4...

              ...The cost of offshore projects remained low in this auction with strike prices of just £37.35 per megawatt hour (MWh), the lowest cost of all renewable technologies.

              Woo, and yey! So this means that previous CfD auctions should be re-evaluated and re-priced because-

              https://www.lowcarboncontracts.uk/cfd-register/

              Shows most contracts were priced well above the pre-Ukraine wholesale electricity price, and because they're often indexed, will increase as they add to our inflationary pressure. This particular con is standard low-ball bidding, CfD winners could choose not to take up CfD contracts for (I think) up to 3yrs after award, so a couple of lowballs from the last round aren't selling via their CfD contracts, but on the market. Can't think why given the current wholesale price has been blown sky high thanks to the 'renewables' lobby.

              Plus the LCCC data exposes the bullshit about wind being cheaper than nuclear. The register makes that clear, eg Hinkley C's strike price is 113.83£/MWh whereas a large subsidy extractor like the Hornsea off-shore windfarm gets 175.25£/MWh

              And CfD's don't benefit consumers at all because if market price exceeds CfD strike price, any 'windfall' goes to the government, not consumers.

              So on the one hand, the 'renewables' scammers say they can deliver wind for <£50/MWh, but never actually seem to do this, hence the ever increasing electricity bills. There's also a huge amount of deception because the CfD strike price and marketing bollocks don't include additional costs for providing connectivity, stand-by capacity etc etc,

              1. Binraider Silver badge

                Re: The wind does not blow on demand

                While there is some truth to be found in your rant, it is also mixed with the usual propaganda. CfD is indeed broken and no benefit to consumer.

                The major problem is that we have a free market, and as such, the price of renewable Electricity is defined by the price the oil companies set for gas. Because why wouldn’t a renewable generator charge as much as they can for their product?

                Competition is a two way street, and in a constrained/captive market the seller always wins.

                Nuke, grid scale storage and renewables can absolutely supplant coal and gas. And more sensible market mechanisms can supplant the dumb ones we have now, including CfD.

                Prof. Dieter Helms podcasts highly recommended.

                But the way things are now going entirely off grid may actually be favourable.

                1. Jellied Eel Silver badge

                  Re: The wind does not blow on demand

                  The major problem is that we have a free market, and as such, the price of renewable Electricity is defined by the price the oil companies set for gas. Because why wouldn’t a renewable generator charge as much as they can for their product?

                  I think the major problem is we don't have a free market. The market has very much been rigged in favour of the subsidy scammers. So 'renewable' energy is one marketing gimmick. Low Carbon or Zero Carbon is the policy ambition. Nuclear, or modern coal generation is either zero carbon, or low carbon compared to the UK's old coal power.

                  So the Climate Change Act demanded we reduce CO2 emissions by 30%. E.On proposed replacing old coal at Kingsnorth with 2x800MW supercritical coal units that would have produced 20-30% less CO2, even without fitting CCS. So it would have met the requirements of both policy and price. Instead, our ecofreaks flew James Hansen in from the US for a judicial review and got the project shut down. Drax avoided closure by converting it's coal units to burn forests instead. Burning fossil fuels bad! Deforestation for fuel, good!

                  As for why subsidy scammers shouldn't fleece the market, well, that's back to 'renewable' bullshit. Capitalism allows price gougers to charge as much as they can get away with. CfDs allow the 'renewables' lobby to claim wind's <£40MWh. CfD scam allows the generator that bid <£40 to delay entering the CfD scheme, and sell at current market price instead.

                  So they bid based on the theory that they could run a viable business, including reasonable margin for <£40, and entered into long-term contracts at that price. If they're selling for >£160 instead, that's a rather large and obvious windfall profit far in excess of the contracted price.

                  But that's why rational governments generally have regulators to guard against price gouging, cartel behaviour, predatory pricing, or perhaps just to keep inflation in check. The useless show of shite we have currently in power(ish) has done none of the above, only rig the markets in favour of the 'renewables' scumbags.

                  And so as a result, the UK has both an energy and an inflation crisis, and more people are starting to see the connection. And as you say, Dieter Helm and others had been pointing this out for years.

            3. The Dogs Meevonks Silver badge

              Re: The wind does not blow on demand.

              The anti-renewables whinging idiots are all the same... It's never been a question of if it's currently capable of covering 100% of the demand... it's about reducing our need for the vastly worse options, the vastly worse POLLUTING ones.

              Economies of scale will eventually kick in to reduce the cost... 6 yrs ago... it cost about £12k to install a 4kw solar system on a property. Now you can get one for around £6-7k. I know because we have them and are currently buying a new house that doesn't (but will have them)

              The cost of the transition will always be expensive... we need not only renewables, but a definitive plan to insulate and secure all of those millions of homes in this country that are desperately in need to more efficient ways to heat/cool them. Do both of them and yes... it's gonna cost a lot of money NOW... but demand will drop if you've got a home that requires much less gas/power to operate in the future. With solar panels, a 1940's house that's been insulated almost as far as is possible, we're paying just £75 a month in utilities as we put the FiT payments we receive (avg £650 a year) back onto the bills and admittedly are still on a fixed rate tariff until Feb 2023.

              But the one thing I never see anyone talking about that whilst currently expensive... is the most perfect solution for this country... Wave generation. We're a frickin island and every time over the last 15yrs I've seen plans/projects for wave power generation... it gets canned by the govt.

              Renewable deniers have no answer to that outside of the cost... which economies of scale will eventually take care of... because tides ALWAYS flow.

              1. Binraider Silver badge

                Re: The wind does not blow on demand.

                Wave/Tidal machinery has asset lifetimes measured in, at best, the one to two decades.

                I don't dispute the capability, but steel and aluminium do not react well with seawater under any circumstances.

                High cost and short lifetime mean the ROI is relatively poor compared to wind or solar; even if you have to add grid scale storage to make the two of them work.

                The last 40 years government has done it's damnednest to cover up the late 1970's CEGB plans that were, in a very quick summary: 1: Build Dinorwig to cover for the trip of a large nuclear generator (Sizewell B or equivalent) 2) get the prototype of Sizewell B up and stamp out 6 to 12 clones of it 3) add windmills to make up as much other demand as possible. Any remaining shortfalls would then be covered by limited coal or gas use.

                What we got instead was rampant short-termism, de-regulation and burning of gas on mass scale, and no semblance of a long term plan beyond let the markets resolve it. The profits thave been siphoned off and instead of re-invested in long term, have rotted away.

                Now all we can do is borrow money to pay for the necessary investment instead.

                You could not make this up. Bring back the CEGB, all is forgiven!

          3. werdsmith Silver badge

            Re: Sub-sea nukes

            The wind does not blow on demand.

            Like it's always 5 o clock somewhere, the wind is always blowing somewhere.

            So a power grid can always have a wind contribution.

            1. Alan Brown Silver badge

              Re: Sub-sea nukes

              "Like it's always 5 o clock somewhere, the wind is always blowing somewhere"

              Tell that to the people of South Australia

              That's the reason they ended up having to buy grid-scale battery backup systems

              1. shocking

                Re: Sub-sea nukes

                Having a bunch of transmission towers blow over did not help.

              2. Scoular

                Re: Sub-sea nukes

                That is not true!

                There was a totally unrelated network failure.

                The owners of that big battery are done very well indeed out of having installed it.

                Batteries are excellent for short term supply or storage but alternatives are required for longer term. Fortunately there are several available.

                Even in a flat crowded country pumped storage can make a big contribution, you do not need the geography of Norway or Switzerland.

            2. Wellyboot Silver badge

              Re: Sub-sea nukes

              In March this year the UK wind contribution dropped to about 2.5% of demand one evening. something like 95% of possible turbine capacity didn't happen.

              The wind was blowing somewhere else

              1. Lon24

                Re: Sub-sea nukes

                Yes, I remember that. But if you checked out how demand was being satisfied you would have seen the Norwegian interconnector peaking out on delivering hydro power and the French with mostly nuclear. The Dutch wasn't doing much because wind was presumably not contributing much there either. Oh, and stored power in that Welsh lake plus hydro was also maxing out.

                Hence there is already non-fossil stuff around to bridge some of the gap. OK if we quadruple wind power that means under the same conditions it would only deliver 10% of demand directly. On the other hand when the wind blows it could easily produce surplus demand - around 200% of demand alone. Right now we don't have the infrastructure to balance out the surpluses and famines sufficiently. Hence there are times now when wind blows hard we can't use 100% of capacity.

                Building that infrastructure is a massive technological challenge but may be easier and cheaper the trying to clean fossil power co2 emissions. An example using the surplus to generate green hydrogen that could be briefly stored and burnt at modified gas turbine stations is a major opportunity to use some of the most efficent CCGT fleet in future. Using last night's surplus to satisfy tonight's evening peak.

                There is also intelligent demand management to keep the lights on at all times but allowing your fridge to skip an hour cooling to flatten the peak without noticeably affecting you, except reducing your cost of buying peak power.

                There are no magic bullets, just a clever combination of sources (including nuclear), that with imagination can be balanced to approach a non-fossil fuel future. If we have to keep a few mothballed CCGT plants for exceptional still winter evenings so be it - then we might still be looking at 90% less fossil over the year than a decade ago.

                Getting the last 10% or so of completely pure renewables will be very difficult verging on the impossible.We, or our children will see, but that shouldn't stop us going for the 90% in our lifetimes.

                1. SundogUK Silver badge

                  Re: Sub-sea nukes

                  "If we have to keep a few mothballed CCGT plants for exceptional still winter evenings so be it"

                  It doesn't work like that. These plants need to be maintained constantly and run periodically to keep them operational and safe. The engineers need to be trained in their use. Fuel degrades over time if not used. etc. etc. etc. This all costs money which has to be factored into the cost of 'renewable' energy sources.

                  1. Killing Time

                    Re: Sub-sea nukes

                    'It doesn't work like that'

                    It does and it can if you drop the Combined Cycle (CC) function and use readily available Simple Cycle Gas Turbine generation. Granted they are not as (energy conversion) efficient but as the goal is that they run very infrequently that is not a major issue. It's a loss of roughly 25-30% of the total energy conversion efficiency.

                    As the name suggests, they are far simpler to install, run (can be operated remotely), maintain and can be readily dispatched with full load generation in a matter of minutes from cold as opposed to in excess of an hour for the best CCGT in a cold start scenario. Your operations staff, in a central location, can dispatch and monitor multiple remote sites. Maintenance and direct operation needs are probably only around 25% of CCGT requirements as you completely do away with the water/steam/boiler(HRSG)/ Steam Turbine/ cooling aspect of the generation.

                    Modular (i.e. relatively easily installable / replaceable ) units up to 100MW have been available for some years.

                    I don't understand your point regarding fuel degradation. Run them on NG, it's been in the ground for millions of years, it's not changing significantly in the timescales we are looking at. Supplement the NG with H if you can, however that is a whole new can of worms which would probably hammer the economic case on safety, operation and maintenance requirements alone.

                  2. David Hicklin Bronze badge

                    Re: Sub-sea nukes

                    "It doesn't work like that."

                    Have an upvote

                    You find after a while the the mothballed plant gradually get stripped for spares to keep the active plants going - usually right at the moment you need them.

                    However you will need them fast, so they won't really be mothballed, more kept on standby

                2. Wellyboot Silver badge

                  Re: Sub-sea nukes

                  A constructive comment :)

                  The welsh lake (Dinorwig) is the emergency standby supply (and historically, the 5 mins after Corrie when millions of kettles were switched on) capable of replacing a Gw size power station for a few hours, when it's being used we're nearly out of options and it needs to remain as that last option. we can only import a few Gw from the continent (and if they let us).

                  A quadrupling* increase in wind would (perversely) cause much more instability in the grid as the generation spikes become much more extreme, this much extra capacity may well be best used just for your point about generating Hydrogen to replace natural gas in the CCGT plant. Long term there may well be an argument for all wind power to be used that way and having the grid load serviced via steady running H burning CCGT & Nuclear generators.

                  If the base load nuclear capacity is pushed up to around 20Gw over the next two decades (Hinkley, new Sizewell & 3rd big plant, few dozen SMRs) the overnight (we hope) excess could also contribute to H production. finally on this point just accounting for the following days demand spikes isn’t good enough, would you be happy with ‘In 24 hours time there will be no more piped water until it rains again’. We’d need a lot of H storage, there was several months of coal stocks when we had 80% coal generation.

                  Fridge power management isn't even a rounding error, modern fridges take 2-3 days to burn through a Kw/h (Freezers maybe half that time) so losing an hour here or there only save us pennies a week**. Five mins under an electric shower will burn 1Kw/h***, Most of our electric usage is constant trickle or short high intensity bursts like cooking.

                  I do actually think we can get to 100% Carbon free generation well before 2050 if we put the effort in, my main concern has always been the infrastructure replacement needed to replace carbon based power from home heating & vehicles during a UK winter cold snap which as you pointed out is a massive challenge not least because all previous post war designs expected to be using non electric vehicles and a big % of gas cooking & heating.

                  * pushing wind capacity at any point to between zero & 100Gw, we can certainly find use for the extra when it’s there but there will be screaming about all the extra pylons to carry it.

                  ** assuming it doesn’t immediately go into active cooling when powered back on, they do spend most of their time at near zero power usage waiting for a thermostat trigger. In the all electric future home then tweaking 100Mw/h overnight nationally to make a difference suggests supply reliability is on a knife edge

                  *** 12Kw/h element. that’s around 30p these days, if my three children were still at home I'd be going through minimum £45/month just keeping the family clean. Any cooking device will also be in the 1-5Kw/h usage range and we tend to use a few of those at the same time.

                  1. Crypto Monad Silver badge
                    Headmaster

                    Re: Sub-sea nukes

                    Please correct your units!

                    "Five mins under an electric shower will burn 1Kw/h"

                    No: it's 1kWh (kilowatt-hour, not kilowatts per hour)

                    "*** 12Kw/h element"

                    No: it's a 12kW element (kilowatts, not kilowatts per hour nor kilowatt-hours)

                    kW = power = the rate at which energy is consumed. 12kW is 12,000 joules of energy per second.

                    kWh = energy = the total energy consumed. 1kWh is 3.6 megajoules of energy (1000 joules per second x 3600 seconds per hour)

                  2. Anonymous Coward
                    Anonymous Coward

                    Re: Sub-sea nukes

                    Dinorwig's historical intention was to be used that way. However, if you look at the last 5 to 10 years operational data (available on https://www.bmreports.com/bmrs/?q=help/about-us, or rather more readable on gridwatch) you will see that they tend to operate continuously today - albeit not at full rate.

                    Simple economics says such a high value asset probably should be used as much as possible.

                    Under current generation mix, Wind alternates with Gas in the main; and European interconnection offers (sometimes) some price competition with Gas. As noted elsewhere, if all of Europe is short, then interconnection can be counter-productive to UK interests.

                    The rules for which supplies are disconnected first are very telling. Mrs Miggins at number 12 will be turned off in a supply emergency LONG before the interconnector to France is; even if it's exporting.

                    In the face of Ofgem's ineffectiveness, public ownership is the only way to cut out the middlemen that cream off the UK at every turn. Tory government isn't going to change on that regard. And neither will your vastly high electricity bill unless you vote tactically to get them out.

                    A/C because employed in the sector.

                3. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

                  Re: Sub-sea nukes

                  "allowing your fridge to skip an hour cooling"

                  No.. Just no. That's NOT a solution of any kind whatsoever. A properly insulated fridge with the door shut cannot use less power except by allowing the temperature to rise, reducing the safe storage time of the contents, likely producing more waste food or even unsafe food. Even the money saving experts advise against this as a cost/energy saving measure not only for the above mentioned reasons, but when it powers back up, either manually or on your mythical 1 hour timers, it has to work harder to get the temperature back down again. This almost as insane an idea of low powered kettles. They take longer to boil and so allow more heat to escape during the longer process than a high powered kettle in a shorter time. It's a small amount, multiplied by many millions of kettle boils per day.

                  1. Richard 12 Silver badge

                    Intermittent freezers

                    Are a way to move a few MW of load by perhaps half an hour.

                    Intermittent contracts are to stabilise local transmission lines/substations during a momentary local peak, or to cover a surge while a CCGT moves from spinning reserve to generation.

                    If the CCGT isn't already hot then they do nothing.

                    1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

                      Re: Intermittent freezers

                      If you need to move a few MW of load by half an hour, you have MUCH bigger problems than managing "intermittent freezers". And the OP mentioned fridges, not freezers. A freezer being off for half an hour, so loing as the door isn't opened, will probably suffer no ill effects, but when they all get power back, every single one of them will kick in because they will need to chill back down again probably causing a surge in demand bigger than the one you just avoided. Now you need to force everyone onto a smart meter and mandate "smart" freezers along with the management software to avoid them all coming back on at once.

                  2. Robert Carnegie Silver badge

                    Re: Sub-sea nukes

                    I reckon you could design a fridge freezer so that you can tell the freezer to cool itself down MORE in advance of a predicted shortage of electricity generation, and the fridge to operate just by transferring heat into the freezer... a bit. So that would use less electricity during that time. And they're so efficient nowadays anyway.

                    1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

                      Re: Sub-sea nukes

                      Physics says you still use the same amount of energy over time to get down to the set temperature. My first thought on reading your first sentence was why would you want a system that increases the load on the grid just before a predicted shortage? I can see how it might smooth out the curve a bit, but again it requires everyone to have a mandated smart meter and mandated "smart" fridge/freezers, or at least a significant majority of people. Moving energy consumption around is very a very short term solution and, as others have said, shifts and/or stretches "peak" times, so it's not even a cost saving measure other than for the early adopters who probably won't see a real ROI.

                      I saw a report the other week stating that high end fridge/freezers are more efficient and cheaper to run than a mid-range one, but the extra up front cost is never recovered in the lifetime running cost savings compared to a mid-range one. Saving pennies here and there for the good of the planet is a good thing, but it's expensive for the average consumers to do that.

                4. Jellied Eel Silver badge

                  Re: Sub-sea nukes

                  ...On the other hand when the wind blows it could easily produce surplus demand - around 200% of demand alone.

                  In normal economics, excess inventory leads to lower prices. In green economics, it leads to higher prices. So take wind surplus @£180/MWh, batteries not included. Then add storage costs-

                  https://atb.nrel.gov/electricity/2021/utility-scale_battery_storage

                  and you pretty much double the cost of your stored energy. So by a miracle of financial engineering, convert something that has no value into something that can sell for double. Oh, and along the way you can generate millions more by selling 'balancing services' to compensate for the intermittency the 'renewables' lobby generates.

                  Right now we don't have the infrastructure to balance out the surpluses and famines sufficiently. Hence there are times now when wind blows hard we can't use 100% of capacity.

                  Building that infrastructure is a massive technological challenge

                  Not at all, because we've done it before for much the same reason. See-

                  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_7

                  A new off-peak tariff known as the 'Economy 7' tariff was introduced in October [1978]. It featured a seven-hour night rate some 20 per cent cheaper than most night-time tariffs, made possible by economies in the night-time operation of the system.

                  Sure, there's still some technological challenges, ie organising the 'demand management' to be able to variably switch on/off enough cheap resistive heating elements to balance supply and demand in a vaguely fair fashion. So thermostat + smart meter and a smart-ish control centre.

                  And ok, some homes haven't been built with space for a decent sized energy store, aka hot water tank and storage heaters. But given Net Zero requires us to rip out and throw away millions of gas combi boilers and replace radiators to support heat pumps, replacing central heating systems is something households are being forced to do anyway.

                  Biggest difference though is Economy 7 arguably benefitted both consumers and industry. The 'new' technology entirely benefits suppliers, ie they can use arbitrage to charge their batteries when prices are low, and sell to consumers when prices are high. Obviously anti-consumer and anti-inflationary, especially given the consumers have been loaded with the costs to enable price gouging in the first place.

                  But such is politics. Socialise the costs, privatise the profits. Got EV? No? Never mind. The costs of supporting EV charging will be added to your electricity bill anyway.

            3. 45RPM Silver badge

              Re: Sub-sea nukes

              It seems to me that there’s more than enough renewable energy to go around, 24/7. The problem is whether or not we are

              A) Clever enough to use it

              B) Able to capture it without generating a lot of very harmful chemical waste in the process of building the necessary equipment.

              The wind may not blow all the time, but that’s no reason not to use its power when its power is available. We can store that energy for use when the wind isn’t blowing.

              The sun may not shine all the time but when the sun isn’t shining with sufficient power to run solar the earth itself is radiating energy back into space - and solar panels are now being developed which can harness this power.

              Tides never stop, giving a huge potential source of power which only lets up briefly at high and low tide - but since high and low tides are at different times even in a single county (let alone around the world) this too represents a continual source of energy.

              But the best source of all is not using the energy. Do you really need a seven seater SUV to carry one person around (I find for one person a bike usually works well, and for nearly everyone else a small car is ideal). Do you really need your TV, router, microwave etc to be on standby while you sleep at night? The potential savings are huge!

              Love and Kisses, RES B (Renewable Energy Scumbag)

              1. Jellied Eel Silver badge

                Re: Sub-sea nukes

                A) Clever enough to use it

                Or clever enough to understand some basic physics (Laws of Thermodynamics aren't suggestions) and see through the lobbying BS..

                B) Able to capture it without generating a lot of very harmful chemical waste in the process of building the necessary equipment.

                That happens, just in places like China or DRC where the minerals needed for extracted, processed and dumped into the environment. One of those dark sides to off-shoring. Producing solar panels or extracting rare earths isn't always a very 'green' process. And then there's contamination from heavy metals in solar panels once they've reached end of life and get dumped.

                The wind may not blow all the time, but that’s no reason not to use its power when its power is available. We can store that energy for use when the wind isn’t blowing.

                See previous comments about physics. Storing electricity is HARD. Storing energy is somewhat easier, and something we've done for centuries with things like coal bunkers.

                But sure, if the 'renewables' lobby can produce electricity for £35/MWh, people would probably buy it because that's about 1/4 of the current wholesale price. Problem is that CfD hasn't been taken up, so electricity's being sold at market price and the operator is pocketing the windfall profits.

                But when you've got say, CCGT @£40/MWh, or nuclear at say £80/MWh, we're forced to pay £150/MWh because wind scammers have preferential market access, and even though nuclear is essentially zero carbon, it doesn't get the same market rigging benefits as 'renewables', so we're forced to overpay for energy.

                And 'storage' just makes it worse. So take something that costs £150MWh, spend another another >£100MWh to store that electricity. Any idea what price you'd have to sell it for? And of course there's also transmission losses, so probably around 30% of the energy lost in the process. So not only ruinously expensive, but also very inefficient.

                Or extremely lucrative, if you're a subsidy farmer. You can 'fix' intermittency problems caused by 'renewables' by offering grid balancing services to keep supply at around 250V/50hz. You have to do this due to wind & solar's intermittency, so it's a cost created and imposed by the 'renewables' lobby. Traditional methods of a mix of base load and load following, ie coal/nuclear + gas or hydro storage don't have this problem, or massive costs.

                The sun may not shine all the time but when the sun isn’t shining with sufficient power to run solar the earth itself is radiating energy back into space - and solar panels are now being developed which can harness this power.

                Oh yes.. Darklight solar. But physics again-

                https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_irradiance#Types

                The average annual solar radiation arriving at the top of the Earth's atmosphere (1361 W/m2)... In other words, averaged over the year and the day, the Earth's atmosphere receives 340 W/m2 from the sun. This figure is important in radiative forcing

                And marketing. Precise number depends on latitude and prevailing weather conditions, ie cloud cover will reduce potential input below 340W/m2. But the radiative forcing bit is fun, especially where that article mentions variations in UV over the solar history. According to dogma, solar irradiance is meant to be a constant and everything is the fault of CO2. But I digress..

                https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_effect

                Anything warmed radiates energy related to its temperature – the Sun at about 5,500 °C (9,930 °F) sends most as visible and near infrared light, while Earth's average surface temperature about 15 °C (59 °F) emits longer wavelength infrared radiant heat.

                Yey! More physics! So all your darklight panels need to do is capture that radiated IR and convert it to electricity. Simples, and something you could do (very inefficiently) with a thermocouple. But physics, which gets a tad more complex. But suppose the Boltzmann constant is around* 1.346×10−23 J/K, so @15C it'd be around 2.019x10-22J, and J=W/s, and you're looking at a teeeny W/m2 potential energy source. Plus the practicalities of developing a solar panel that can maximise capture and conversion of both solar and re-radiated energy. Like normally, ie during the day, you'd want the panel facing the Sun. I guess you could include motors to flip the panel upside down at night to capture radiated energy from the ground, but the ground would have been shaded by the solar panel, so would be cooler anyway.

                It's just one of those practical engineering challenges. We could capture CO2, split that to C & O, convert the carbon into one of it's densest solid storage forms, then use the oxygen to burn the diamonds you've created. Diamond would be converted back into CO2, and you could repeat the process for infinite energy. Just ignore the costs, and thermodynamics. Just because you can, it doesn't mean you should. Sadly, because most of our politicians are f'ng idiots, they'll throw our money at scams like this.

                Love and Kisses, RES B (Renewable Energy Scumbag)

                Thank you for demonstrating my point that Renewable Energy Scumbags really don't have a clue when it comes to phyics, engineering or economics.

                My suggestions for reform would be pretty simple. So we've just had another round of CfDs. So I have no problem with a 'renewables' company bidding say £40/MWh. All that needs to happen is make CfD contracts firm or good delivery. So you bid on delivering 500MW, all you have to do is deliver that. If you can't, then you pay a penalty for every MW you dip below 500MW. So to meet the committment, the 'renewables' company would need to ensure they can deliver a constant 500MW, so any costs for storage or back-up power would be the responsibility of the bidder.

                Oddly, the 'renewables' scumbags don't like that idea because obviously it'd cost a lot more to turn their unreliable/intermittent power into the reliable source of energy we need. They're much happier getting someone else to foot the bill for stand-by, storage, transmission etc etc and simply pocket the profits from delivering an overpriced and unreliable form of energy.

                *Kidding, although there might be a Nobel on offer if you can prove the currently accepted value is wrong. Good luck with that.

                1. jmch Silver badge

                  Re: Sub-sea nukes

                  Not going into too much detail here, but it seems to me that your main issues are (a) with CFTs and how market insiders have profited from (potentially purposefully) flawed implementation of policy. (b) intermittance of wind making it less useful.

                  And I'm absolutely with you on that. But that doesn't mean we can/should keep burning fossil fuels willy-nilly and not invest in renewables at all. As many others have commented, there is no one silver bullet here. There has to be a combination of changes / enforcement in building code to make sure new builds are both energy efficient and include solar panels / heating. Subsidies have to be pointed towards improving energy efficiency of old homes, instead of to energy producers who are keeping profits for themselves. Renewable energy plants, whether wind or solar, have to be mandated to have a minimum of energy storage.

                  With respect to intermittency, solar with molten salt manages this quite well. And as to "the wind always blows somewhere", while this is clearly not true in an absolute sense, there is part of a truth in there, which increases as the area included in "somewhere" increases, which is why grid interconnectors across Europe and down to North Africa can smooth out intermittency. And even then, there will still be a baseload requirement that can be handled by nuclear.

                  You are right, this stuff is difficult. But we can do it as long as there are clear goals, willingness to invest in infrastructure, and good governance to make sure everything is moving the right way. What is unfortunate is that these are in short supply!!!

                2. veti Silver badge

                  Re: Sub-sea nukes

                  There are zero- or near-zero net carbon options that can work either constantly (e.g. geothermal) or on demand (e.g. biomass).

                  Note that these are not experimental or theoretical alternatives, but well proven technologies with extensive portfolios of usage in many countries worldwide. Heck, we used biomass before coal. It worked okay then, and it works much, much better now.

              2. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

                Re: Sub-sea nukes

                Do you really need your TV, router, microwave etc to be on standby while you sleep at night? The potential savings are huge!

                Er, from standby? No, no they are not.

                The router might draw enough electricity to be noticeable, but we have devices updating and doing other work at night anyway, and losing our picocell phone service while we sleep is not ideal if someone needs to contact us.

                The television and microwave draw almost nothing on standby. You can tell by the fact that no part of them is discernibly warmer than the ambient air temperature; they're not dissipating enough heat to be perceptible. And what little heat they do disperse is into conditioned space, so in the colder months it's offsetting other kinds of heating. Indeed, since it always gets cold at night here at the Mountain Fastness, there's really no advantage to disabling standby.

                The "vampire power" myth is just that – a myth. The energy consumption of devices on standby is dwarfed even by, say, typical household lighting.

                Now, trundling around in enormous vehicles, sure. I'll agree with that. And vehicles these days are also mostly over-powered. In the 80's people got along fine with vehicles that had much lower power-to-mass ratios. More-efficient engines were used as an excuse to increase power, not improve efficiency.

                1. Anonymous Coward
                  Anonymous Coward

                  Re: Sub-sea nukes

                  "More-efficient engines were used as an excuse to increase power, not improve efficiency."

                  So, more efficient engines didn't improve efficiency? Please explain this contradiction.

                  1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

                    Re: Sub-sea nukes

                    I think he's suggesting, but possibly wording a bit poorly, that people tend towards more powerful engines so although engines are more efficient now, they are using the same amount of fuel that the smaller, less efficient ones did. 30mpg used to be seen as good for an average sized family car. The equivalent modern version of that car can probably get 60mpg nowadays but so many people are opting for much bigger or higher "performance" cars and still getting 30mpg from them.

              3. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

                Re: Sub-sea nukes

                "Do you really need your TV, router, microwave etc to be on standby while you sleep at night? The potential savings are huge!"

                Actually, no, they are not. It's literally pennies per year unless it's really old kit.

              4. Richard 12 Silver badge
                Boffin

                Re: Sub-sea nukes

                Do you really need your TV, router, microwave etc to be on standby while you sleep at night? The potential savings are huge!

                To use some absolute maximums:

                Router: 20W (rating on the PSU, actual far lower)

                TV, STB, microwave, phone charger: 0.5W each (enforced by EU law)

                So a typical household has 22W 'vampire' power at night, and 2W during the day. Assume 8 hours sleeping time, and that you never use the TV etc during the day either:

                365.25 × 8 × 22 = 64.3kWh during sleep

                365.25 × 16 × 2 = 11.7kWh during the day

                Theoretical maximum annual saving is 76kWh - or £21 a year at current price cap. Huge?

                In reality the router uses very little when clients are inactive. So the real figure is less than half.

                So the annual saving buys you between one and two beers.

                1. Lars Silver badge
                  Coat

                  Re: Sub-sea nukes

                  "So the annual saving buys you between one and two beers."

                  Yes but how many for the whole population.

                  1. Anonymous Coward
                    Anonymous Coward

                    Re: Sub-sea nukes

                    1 or 2 beers for the whole population I think

                2. Strahd Ivarius Silver badge
                  Pint

                  Re: Sub-sea nukes

                  with the inflation and the difficulties to get ingredients for brewing beer, expect it to go down to 1 beer max

                  1. TimMaher Silver badge
                    Flame

                    Re: 1 beer max

                    In a Weatherspoons that will get you 4 pints of wife beater, a bag of pork scratchings and into a fight with a nearby drunk before you throw up in their disgusting bog.

              5. CrazyOldCatMan Silver badge

                Re: Sub-sea nukes

                router to be on standby while you sleep at night

                Yes..

              6. Binraider Silver badge

                Re: Sub-sea nukes

                Storage doesn't have to be batteries or lakes. Pumped storage can be done with all sorts of fluids, more dense than water and therefore more distributable than lakes and reservoirs.

                I maintain a good combo of such slow, medium and fast response storage plus renewables and nuke is more than adequate to cover many scenarios.

                The issue is mostly financing their construction - speculate to accumulate.

                UK Market mechanisms actively conspire against storage projects, which is why we have hardly any.

                Ofgem have lost the plot, it's masters are too busy climbing the greasy pole to give a hoot about what's happening on the ground, and in the meantime mere mortals get bills more than doubling in 6 months.

                The best thing to do to bring change is to vote out the Tories at your earliest opportunity.

            4. SImon Hobson Bronze badge

              Re: Sub-sea nukes

              the wind is always blowing somewhere

              But is it blowing somewhere useful ?

              Sadly I don't have a citation, it being in an engineering journal before I'd even heard of the internet. But someone did a study of wind records across the whole of Europe and Scandinavia. So, the argument goes that when the wind isn't blowing un the UK, it'll be blowing in other countries we can import the power from. The study found that this was not the case at a surprisingly high frequency - several days/year IIRC.

              In addition to this, it's not all that uncommon to have a high pressure zone sat over a large part of northern Europe and Scandinavia - for as long as a couple of weeks. So that's a massive area with little wind generation, and a rather long time - certainly longer than your typical "few hours to a day backup" battery capacity.

              The consequence of this is that realistically to have 100% renewables would mean having over-capacity of a massive scale - my "stick a finger in the air" guesstimate would be in the order of 5 to 10 fold over-capacity. And you'd need some very clever, and immensely large, energy storage solutions to harvest a lot of the over-supply on good days in order to fill the gaps "when the wind bloweth not".

              And as pointed out, the current market allows the renewables suppliers to completely ignore all the incidental costs of their intermittency when calculating their prices.

      2. Scott 53

        Re: Sub-sea nukes

        "reactor" and "gone critical" shouldn't really appear in the same sentence.

        1. Wellyboot Silver badge

          Re: Sub-sea nukes

          >>>"reactor" and "gone critical" shouldn't really appear in the same sentence.<<<

          You might want to talk to nuclear engineer about that.

        2. Filippo Silver badge

          Re: Sub-sea nukes

          They can and should, if you know what you're talking about.

          If you don't, it's not a big deal; it'd be a dull place if everyone only ever talked about what they knew. However, the misunderstanding is on you, not on the term or on the people using it properly.

        3. heyrick Silver badge

          Re: Sub-sea nukes

          "shouldn't really appear in the same sentence"

          You've been watching too many lame low budget sci-fi movies where the scriptwriter heard the phrase, thought it sounded cool, and used it with no idea of what it actually means.

          Hint, it's to do with "criticality", the state of a sustainable reaction.

          1. Jellied Eel Silver badge

            Re: Sub-sea nukes

            I also like 'criticality excursion'. Sounds like a bit of a holiday, especially if the reactor is moving. If so, one should probably take a break from work and a quick road trip.

      3. cantankerous swineherd

        Re: Sub-sea nukes

        nuclear power has never been and never will be a commercial proposition.

        1. Wellyboot Silver badge

          Re: Sub-sea nukes

          And wind turbines are a commercial proposition are they? If so stop all the subsidies now and let them sell their power by the Mw on a open market.

          Power generation is best operated as a long term national energy policy underwritten by general taxation because that actually works when engineers make the long term mix decisions instead of politicians.

          1. Stork Silver badge

            Re: Sub-sea nukes

            Photovoltaics are, at least in the sunny climate I live. I expect a payback time of under 4 years, I now just need GALP to do the installation - they are behind schedule.

            And no, no feed in tariff. We will be donating excess electricity.

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: Sub-sea nukes

              No electricity use at night?

        2. Filippo Silver badge

          Re: Sub-sea nukes

          The thing is, in the context of power generation, figuring out what exactly is a viable commercial proposition is insanely hard. There are special subsidies and special taxes everywhere. The market is so distorted as to be unrecognizable. I wouldn't even be able to define what exactly "viable commercial proposition" means.

          Now, I am not a free market fanatic, and I think it's actually fine that governments keep a firm hand on the power generation business.

          It does, however, mean that whether something is a commercial proposition or not basically boils down to "it is if the government wants it to be, otherwise it isn't", with technical and economical factors being comparatively much less important. Something that's not profitable now may become profitable a couple of elections from now.

          It's easy to say "if there were no external incentives/disincentives, the method that would win out is...", but the fact is that we have absolutely no idea of how that situation would play out, because it's never happened before, and technical merits are not the only forces in play, not by far.

          1. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

            Re: Sub-sea nukes

            And there are plenty of critical-resource systems which aren't commercially viable.

            Heath care isn't commercially viable; the US has been trying to pretend it is for decades, and it's become a horrible mess.

            Here in the US Southwest, water isn't commercially viable, and hasn't been since the Bureau of Reclamation started trying to capture all of it. Right now water distribution is heavily subsidized (often in part by flagrantly violating the law) and people are busy ignoring the fact that they're depleting the aquifers and the rivers are over-allocated. When that crashes it's going to be really bad, and everyone will wake up to just how distorted that market is.

            I, too, am in favor of government regulation in many spheres, where severe externalities need to be converted into direct costs to prevent disaster. Of course, regulation often fails to do that, for all the usual reasons – regulatory capture, the slow movement of legislatures and regulators, short-sightedness, and plain old corruption – but for now it's all we have.

            1. Jellied Eel Silver badge

              Re: Sub-sea nukes

              When that crashes it's going to be really bad, and everyone will wake up to just how distorted that market is.

              Yep. And for the US, and places like Nevada and California, it seems quite imminent. So water levels in Lake Mead and feeder systems to the Hoover Dam that produces a good amount of power for the area. While water levels are high enough for generation.. and the reservoirs are rapidly approaching dead-pool status.

              As is often the case, this is being blamed on 'global warming'. Not the inevitable consequence of increased water demand from rapid population growth. Plus California's.. odd decision to grow water intensive crops like fruit, salad veg, almonds etc in a desert.

              (I'm curious when this will get noticed. Or that current US climate conditions seem to strongly resemble those from the Great Depression / Dustbowl era.. And if causation's much the same, ie a possible 60yr-ish natural AMO/PDO cycle.)

              1. David Hicklin Bronze badge

                Re: Sub-sea nukes

                "water levels in Lake Mead"

                Isn't that down to having on of the worst droughts in living history? And if GW had not contributed to the intensity (note I don't say caused!), then what has ?

                Of course it does help being insanely wasteful with the water you have.

                1. Jellied Eel Silver badge

                  Re: Sub-sea nukes

                  Isn't that down to having on of the worst droughts in living history? And if GW had not contributed to the intensity (note I don't say caused!), then what has ?

                  That's really global warming dogma in a nutshell. At one exteme, there's the idea that the climate was in equilibrium prior to around 1850, and mankind is entirely responsible for changing the weather. On the other, stacks of historical and geological evidence that there have been natural climate changes in the past.

                  So the challenge is quantifying the effects, which boils down to climate sensitivity wrt CO2. Which then gets even more complicated because natural CO2 flux dwarfs any human contribution. And there are benefits like CO2 fertilisation and better crop yields from having higher CO2 levels, which can also include reduced water requirements for similar yields.

                  Then there's stuff like Lake Mead, which is an artificial lake created to supply the Hoover Dam. So sized based on demand levels decided a few decades ago. And as you say, is dependent on managing the water system so the water levels stay high. Extract too much upstream for agriculture or populations, and the lake level drops. And we know droughts have happened in the past, eg the Dust Bowl conditions, and will probably happen in the future.

                  It's one of those insane justifications used by the 'renewables' blob. We're changing the climate, so we'll get more/less extreme weather, so let's become dependent on the weather. In the UK, it's currently hot due to a high pressure zone, so that means no wind, which means windmills are useless and no electricity to power air conditioners. Whether that's a problem or not depends on how well homes are designed to stay warm or cool. Which is also another one of those policy challenges. Idiotic ecofreaks from groups like 'Insulate Britain' think we should superinsulate all our homes. Ok, that would save some energy when it's cold, but also makes heatwaves more dangerous, if people can't cool/ventilate their homes.

                  1. Lars Silver badge
                    Thumb Down

                    Re: Sub-sea nukes

                    @Jellied Eel

                    I suppose it's beyond you that a well insulated house is also easier to keep cool.

                    And also nobody has claimed mankind is entirely responsible for changing the weather.

                    And I hope you will some day understand the difference between the climate and the weather.

      4. oiseau
        WTF?

        Re: Sub-sea nukes

        ... main problem I see with BoJo's resignation is who's going to replace him.

        Hmm ...

        Half cooked/unfinished brain's resignation?

        A problem?

        Just what have you been sprinkling on your tea?

        Are you sure it was sugar?

        O.

  2. Fr. Ted Crilly Silver badge
    1. wolfetone Silver badge
      Coat

      Re: er

      Forgive me.

  3. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

    Will he take the wallpaper with him when he leaves?

    1. A Non e-mouse Silver badge
      Coat

      Will he she take the wallpaper...

      FTFY

      1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

        Probably not. She'll want something newer. Whether BoJo will now be able to find someone to fix it it a different matter.

    2. iron Silver badge

      How long before she dumps the cheating shite on his arse now he doesn't have the aphrodisiac of power?

      1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

        Shouldn't Prime Minister's mistress be a civil service appointment, like the cabinet secretary, that goes with the job rather than the incumbent having to provide their own ?

        1. MrDamage Silver badge

          Do you really want the tax payer to foot the bill for all of the counselling the mistress would require after seeing Bojo naked?

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          The former London Mayor already did that. Though he didn't put her on the payroll, just arranged a lavish taxpayer grant for her alleged digital marketing expertise - unless that's a new euphemism for rumpy-pumpy..

        3. Potemkine! Silver badge

          In France, one of the former prime ministers did that albeit illegally.

          1. Danny 2

            @Potemkine!

            The first female French PM, Édith Cresson, visited my council. She declared all Scottish men must be homosexuals because none of us looked at her when she walked down the street. She looked a bit like Boris Johnson in a skirt, or Ann Widdecome in a skirt. Aye, and we also try not to look at car crashes.

            She said homosexuality is an anglo thing, you don't get it in latin nations. Really? Big fan of Ricky Martin no doubt.

            As a supporter of Scottish independence I am sad to see Boris Johnson almost go. Luckily he has surrounded himself with loyal idiots who will ensure his legacy until the next General Election.

            Favourite tech moment: when he defeated a zip wire and demanded a ladder.

      2. Fred Dibnah

        The aphrodisiac of £115k pa or so for life ‘allowance’ might work.

  4. MrXonTR

    More tech

    The article misses an opportunity to point out that OneWeb acquisition is doomed as well.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: More tech

      Oneweb was doomed long before taxpayer money got pissed away on it. There was/is no hope of anyone - far less a government - rescuing it after the original investors and management couldn't make it work.

      Westminster's involvement guarantees an epic fail. These are the geniuses who spent billions on aircraft carriers with no aircraft, Nightingale hospitals with no patients or staff, £53B on a test and trace scheme that never worked, a ferry contract to a company with no ships, a non-existent "world beating" Covid app, etc, etc.

      1. Jellied Eel Silver badge

        Re: More tech

        ...rescuing it after the original investors and management couldn't make it work.

        I met some of their management a few times. I love the potential of using satellite as a backup for terrestrial connections. So I wanted to be able to buy/rent a few thousand connnections a year.

        But they seemed to have no clue about the importance of developing a channel that would allow ISPs and telcos to actually do this.. And I was representing some very large telcos at the time. What we wanted should have been very simple, ie a mechanism to order services and either have OneWeb install them, or supply kit & training so our field engineers or installation partners could do it themselves.

        So we pitched a proposal for the kind of service we wanted. Their management went away, and response was basically a list of their partners, and maybe we should talk to them instead?

        So a rather frustrating experience, and I wasn't at all suprised to find out they needed a bail-out.

      2. SundogUK Silver badge

        Re: More tech

        It's almost as if, maybe, the government should just stop spending money...

        1. codejunky Silver badge

          Re: More tech

          @SundogUK

          "It's almost as if, maybe, the government should just stop spending money..."

          That would be considered heresy in todays world. Instead it spends until there is nothing left to spend

      3. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

        Re: More tech

        "Nightingale hospitals with no patients or staff,"

        Agreed wholeheartedly, apart from this one. If they'd not been there and we had needed them, that would have a much bigger disaster than having them and not needing them.

        1. Richard 12 Silver badge

          Re: More tech

          They had no staff. Caring for a patient requires nurses, and there weren't any.

          So if* we'd needed them, they weren't there.

          * In fact we did need them, as being able to move convalescent patients out of hospital and into a Nightingale would have saved many lives. But they weren't staffed, so the NHS couldn't use them - I think the Excel one got used briefly but closed again due to staffing shortages.

          1. TimMaher Silver badge
            Happy

            Re: Excel

            Don’t bring M$ into this. It was bad enough to begin with.

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: More tech

          Nope. If we had needed them, we had nobody to staff them. Or the equipment that was considered necessary at the time - ventilators and PPE for instance. (That was another shitshow BTW. The government had failed to act on the findings of Operation Cygnus.) So if the Nightingale hospitals had turned out to have been needed, they would have been useless and there still would have been a far bigger disaster.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    37 Billions

    "Then it budgeted £37 billion for a Test and Trace system that failed to achieve its stated ambition of avoiding a second national lockdown."

    Is a typo or what ? How can you possibly spend that much for a test and tracking system ? One Frenchman developed one as a volunteer !

    Yes, based on other data sources, but still ...

    1. A Non e-mouse Silver badge

      Re: 37 Billions

      Ms D. Harding....

      1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

        Re: 37 Billions

        Manners!

        Baroness Harding if you're going to be polite - or wish to point out the ridiculous.

        1. Alan Brown Silver badge

          Re: 37 Billions

          Wife of the Westminster anti-corruption committee leader

          I'm minded of the stories of Russian anti-corruption ministers being found with _BALES_ of money stashed in their apartments (hundreds of millions of dollars).

          Harding proved they were unskilled amateurs

        2. Robert Carnegie Silver badge
          Joke

          Re: 37 Billions

          Isn't that the step mum in Cinderella?

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: 37 Billions

      >How can you possibly spend that much for a test and tracking system? One Frenchman developed one as a volunteer!

      That's the two-year budget for an organisation that employed tens of thousands of people, operated the largest contact centre Europe has ever seen and - this is where the money went - performed or issued hundreds of millions of free COVID tests.

      It still didn't meet its objectives, but the amount of money spent wasn't unreasonable given what it was being spent on. It's how the results of that spend were mismanaged, and how the spend was apportioned amongst the many and varied suppliers that mattered.

      1. elsergiovolador Silver badge

        Re: 37 Billions

        performed or issued hundreds of millions of free COVID tests.

        This alone should be investigated. These tests were not more reliable than using a fortune-teller.

        1. elsergiovolador Silver badge

          Re: 37 Billions

          Ok by the amount of downvotes, is that only my experience? According to these tests I had Covid three times (world record?) and also I didn't have covid while I actually had it (tests coming negative until eventually one came positive at hospital).

          People I know also share similar experience with tests...

          1. A Non e-mouse Silver badge

            Re: 37 Billions

            No test is 100% perfect. You have false positives and false negatives to deal with. These are important numbers that require some careful thinking to get right.

          2. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

            Re: 37 Billions

            "Ok by the amount of downvotes, is that only my experience? According to these tests I had Covid three times (world record?) and also I didn't have covid while I actually had it (tests coming negative until eventually one came positive at hospital)."

            How did you confirm you didn't have COVID? Did you have it with no noticeable symptoms, like many people, or did you just rely on the lateral flow tests and not follow up with a PCR test? You really do need to be clear when making such sweeping claims about your results and be more specific on what tests you took.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: 37 Billions

        WTF!?!? It wasn't reasonable to pay Deloittes £1K/day for outsourced and mostly clueless call centre droids who had nothing to do. It wasn't reasonable to pay £6K+/day for senior Deloittes staff who have no medical expertise and knew fuck all about pandemics or public health. It wasn't reasonable to put Dildo Harding, the Queen of Carnage, in charge of that budget either.

        BTW those free COVID test kits were nothing of the sort. HM taxpayer - you and me - picked up the bill. But given the state of our out of control national debt, our grandchildren will be paying for them too.

        Let's get back to Boris's tech strategy. Did he reach an agreement on UK involvement in the Horizon programme? How many UK academics have had their research grants and projects taken away?

        1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

          Re: 37 Billions

          "It wasn't reasonable to pay Deloittes £1K/day for outsourced and mostly clueless call centre droids who had nothing to do. It wasn't reasonable to pay £6K+/day for senior Deloittes staff who have no medical expertise and knew fuck all about pandemics or public health."

          Nor to be apparently unaware that the experise already existed at local level.

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: 37 Billions

          > It wasn't reasonable to pay Deloittes £1K/day for outsourced and mostly clueless call centre droids who had nothing to do.

          Though nobody claimed it was, to be fair. My point was that the overall sum was pretty reasonable, not that what the sum was spent on was value for money. In particular choosing to contract development & delivery of the trace system to Deloitte et al instead of bolstering local public health directorates was daft, but we'd almost certainly have spent the same on local delivery instead. We'd have just got more for it.

          1. notyetanotherid

            Re: 37 Billions

            I think, IIRC, Private Eye reported that Deloitte charged out interns at £290/hour. In which case, simply recruiting the same people off the dole directly into civil service, would have cut the staffing cost to a fraction of what the taxpayer ended up paying...

            https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/ournhs/deloittes-test-and-trace-bonanza-this-is-how-much-the-british-public-has-paid-them-so-far/

            1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

              Re: 37 Billions

              I suspect the real reason at the time, whether any of us agree or not, is that increasing the numbers of staff at council, government or health boards/trusts has legal implications in vetting, and checking etc and probably a myriad of other "red tape" requirements that might have required an Act of Parliament to overcome while contracting out to private industry would by-pass all of that instantly. It also passed the blame/buck on too.

      3. iron Silver badge

        Re: 37 Billions

        > the amount of money spent wasn't unreasonable

        I disagree. There is no way they should have spent £37 billion for a country the size of the UK.

        And, meanwhile they destroyed what was left of the NHS. Don't get me started on how their incompetance killed my partner earlier this year of a preventable condition that was not COVID because she couldn't get competant treatment.

        1. heyrick Silver badge

          Re: 37 Billions

          "There is no way they should have spent £37 billion for a country the size of the UK."

          To put this into context, 37,000,000,000 divided by 67,000,000 (average UK population) means it cost about £550 for every single person in the country. That's madness.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: 37 Billions

            At its peak the system was doing over 1M tests per day. The retail price of a single LFD is ~£5-6. These are not small numbers. More importantly, COVID caused something on the order of a 10% shrinkage in GDP. ~£22 per person per month is a rounding error in the face of that kind of contraction, and without unlimited, free social testing we almost certainly would not have returned to economic activity so quickly.

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: 37 Billions

              In round figures, I test per week for ~50M people works out at around £1B per week, based on your figures and assuming every adult got tested once a week or thersabouts. Which is of course an overestimate of both the costs and numbers of tests that were carried out. Spending £37B at £1B/week takes ~3 years. The pandemic and lockdown lasted 2 (roughly). Where did the rest of that money go?

              And if we've supposedly "returned to economic activity so quickly", why does the UK has the lowest growth rate and worst performing economy of its peers?

              1. matjaggard

                Re: 37 Billions

                £37B at £1B per week is not 3 years, it's 9 months right?

              2. Anonymous Coward
                Anonymous Coward

                Re: 37 Billions

                > And if we've supposedly "returned to economic activity so quickly", why does the UK has the lowest growth rate and worst performing economy of its peers?

                Well, that's an easy one. Boris and his Brexit.

              3. Ian Moffatt 1

                Re: 37 Billions

                £1B per week = £52B per year.

                Or 37 weeks @ £1B = £37B.

                Where did you get 3 years?

                And to think I got a U for CSE maths in 1971.

                1. Workshy researcher

                  Re: 37 Billions

                  Have an upvote. I too failed CSE maths.

              4. Anonymous Coward
                Anonymous Coward

                Re: 37 Billions

                Sorry. I was pissed when posted this from a work event last night and mixed up the units. The OP said testing cost around £20 per person per month. For around 50M people, that works out at roughly £1B per month. The actual monthly cost will be lower of course because far, far fewer than 50M people got regularly tested and the tests should have been much cheaper if the NHS was bulk buying. Except for the contracts that went to Boris's cronies at rip-off prices.

              5. Martin an gof Silver badge

                Re: 37 Billions

                assuming every adult got tested once a week or thersabouts. Which is of course an overestimate

                I don't know about your costs but every adult once a week seems about right to me as an average. Some jobs (healthcare, teaching for example) required testing two or three times a week, a few required it once a day. Some jobs still require regular testing because vulnerable people are still vulnerable even if the rest of us can usually shake off an infection.

                Most people not required to test by their jobs were following advice and testing before visiting relatives or attending medical facilities, and obviously if they developed symptoms. Also don't discount children; most secondary-age schoolchildren (and some younger) were testing twice a week once schools had reopened and there was a brief period where some were expected to test three times a week.

                Until relatively recently the advice was to test if you have symptoms, and then again at 5 days to clear you to rejoin society, and if positive again the next day and the next until you test clear. Rigidly following those rules, someone with a solid infection could use four tests in the space of a week.

                M.

              6. Oglethorpe

                Re: 37 Billions

                >And if we've supposedly "returned to economic activity so quickly", why does the UK has the lowest growth rate and worst performing economy of its peers?

                You're latching on to forecasts (rather than figures) because they suit your preconceptions. Indeed, the return to economic activity is the reason for a weaker forecast for 2022; the UK outpaced almost everyone in the G20 in 2021 in economic growth while the forerunners in the 2022 forecast did poorly because they were sluggish in getting back up and running.

                1. codejunky Silver badge

                  Re: 37 Billions

                  @Oglethorpe

                  "Indeed, the return to economic activity is the reason for a weaker forecast for 2022; the UK outpaced almost everyone in the G20 in 2021 in economic growth while the forerunners in the 2022 forecast did poorly because they were sluggish in getting back up and running."

                  It was hard to get this through to remainers after the 2008 crash

            2. notyetanotherid

              Re: 37 Billions

              Last time I saw them, Home Bargains was selling C19 antigen LFT kits retail for £1.49 ...

              1. Robert Carnegie Silver badge

                Re: 37 Billions

                Do it must cost a lot less than that to give them away. Retail business has overheads - even Home Bargains, which frankly I might not be shopping in for things to eat, drink, or rely on medically. Though I did buy a thermometer "gun" there. A bit tricky reading your own head with that, I've been using a shortened toilet paper roll tube for the range...

            3. Richard 12 Silver badge

              Re: 37 Billions

              So wholesale is £2-3 to Boots.

              Given the quantities, compare with pregnancy tests. It's the exact same technology, made the same way in the same factories. Those come in at about 10p each for a thousand.

              At 1M per day, a more realistic wholesale price is maybe 20-30 pence each, so £300k/day.

        2. skeptical i

          Re: 37 Billions

          @iron: I am so sorry about your loss.

      4. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: 37 Billions

        212,596,328 tests conducted. So 174 quid per test? That's incredibly expensive.

        https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/testing?areaType=nation&areaName=England

        I think the aim was to spend the money as stimulus, not anything related to Covid itself. Busywork.

      5. hammarbtyp

        Re: 37 Billions

        South Korea with a similar population spent $310 million on theirs and was far more successful. To put this is context the next Nuclear Power Station is budgeted at £22 billion

        The T&T was a great example of how not to run a project. They decided to do everything in house, set up everything then found that their approach was not achievable without Apple and google extending their access rights. They then scrapped it and went back to the approach which everyone said they should of gone on the 1st place, never mind trying to stamp over the privacy rights which meant most people would not touch the app with a barge pole.

        Of course lets not forget the huge amount of wasted resources on PPE bought from anyone with a government minister phone number

    3. Tom 38

      Re: 37 Billions

      £37bn was the 2 year budget for Test and Trace, "only" £29.5bn was spent. That includes all money spent on covid tests, testing centres and contact tracing. The best breakdown I can find is for 2020, £13.5bn was spent, £10.4bn on testing, £1.8bn on outbreak management and support, and £0.9bn on contact tracing.

      Total costs on the app, including the abandoned in house app, were £76m.

  6. Eclectic Man Silver badge
    Joke

    "half-baked ideas"

    Au contraire, his plans were 'oven-ready'*; Mr Johnson said so himself.

    I did travel on the Boris cable car, which was ok, and you do get a good view (when it is not raining), but probably not for those concerned about travel sickness or vertigo.

    As for the Garden Bridge (while he was Mayor of London), I recall in a TV program hosted by Evan Davies, Johnson likened the British economy to a Ryvita** with a blob of jam on London. Johnson was adamant that the way to get more 'jam' (money/investment) the rest of the country was not to spread it around, but to pile a whole lot more on London and it would then 'spread out' of its own accord. (A more compelling argument for Scottish independence I have yet to hear.)

    *In the same way that Hansel and Gretel were, I presume.

    **Other dried flatbreads are available.

    1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

      Re: "half-baked ideas"

      With enough jam spread around London the capital would soon be infested with giant murder hornets thus driving the people out to seek employment and affordable house prices in the northern wastelands regions

      1. Eclectic Man Silver badge
        Joke

        Re: "half-baked ideas"

        As the late, great, Vitoria Wood's newsreader sketch had it:

        (Upper middle-class, Received Pronunciation, female voice)

        "We'd like to apologise to viewers in the North.

        It must be awful for them."

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AijNCV_JWMs

        1. Robert Carnegie Silver badge

          Re: "half-baked ideas"

          IIRC that's "newsreader who has been fired but hasn't been taken off screen yet", but still, yes.

    2. Charlie Clark Silver badge

      Re: "half-baked ideas"

      The odd thing is what it took to force him out: another tawdry scandal. In Britain incompetence rarely has consequences and Johnson seemed to take this approach to new limits.

      Yesterday, as the list of those resigning grew longer, I was astonished at the titles they all had. Evidence, as more was apparently needed, of a particularly bloated and useless government. Not just Rees-Mogg and Gove's meaningless titles but a whole heap of them. It wouldn't have surprised me to see "ambassador to Golgofrincham" in there.

      1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

        Re: "half-baked ideas"

        He wasn't forced out by this scandal. A few people decided he had outlived his usefulness and then the 'quite words in ears' start and the cascade of jumping ship starts

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: "half-baked ideas"

          You seem to be ignoring why those people came to that decision.

          And like most political scandals, it's rarely the initial crime that causes a politician's downfall. It's the deceit, lies and cover-up afterwords which do that.

          1. Charlie Clark Silver badge

            Re: "half-baked ideas"

            Indeed, and I guess there was something in the past that was hushed up, with Johnson's (and others' knowledge), that was threatened to be made public.

          2. Fruit and Nutcase Silver badge
            Joke

            Re: "half-baked ideas"

            And like most political scandals, it's rarely the initial crime that causes a politician's downfall.

            Downfall?

            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dE9zuP7MBG4

        2. Charlie Clark Silver badge

          Re: "half-baked ideas"

          But it was the scandal, or more likely something older and nastier that had been hushed up, that people decided would go too far and probably dominate the summer news cycle.

          The recent vote of confidence effectively demonstrated that the PM was no longer able to command a majority in parliament, the very definition of usefulness. But that wasn't enough for Javid, Sunak, et al. to mention their fundamental differences over policy.

          The timing also doesn't suggest that anything will change much in the party. I guess they're just hoping to avoid an early election in the face of increasingly poor economic data.

          1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

            Re: "half-baked ideas"

            Let's just hope Liz Truss doesn't end up in the job. I don't think I could bear the headlines and puns on Surgical Truss, Trussed up like a turkey etc etc.

            1. First Light

              Re: "half-baked ideas"

              Not to mention she almost started nuclear war with her dumb comments.

      2. Robert Carnegie Silver badge

        Re: "half-baked ideas"

        Had Boris Johnson had a gay scandal before? Everything else that shouldn't have gone on in offices, he's probably done himself. With luncheon vouchers.

        Before it was clear to me how much trouble Chris Pincher was involved in, I imagined Boris being told that Pincher got drunk and misbehaved and was resigning from the government, and Boris making the noise "pfeffel" which he is named after. To resign for that!

    3. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

      Re: "half-baked ideas"

      "Au contraire, his plans were 'oven-ready'*; Mr Johnson said so himself."

      Correct, so not even half-baked. "Over ready" means ready to go in the oven to *start* baking/roasting/cooking. it does NOT mean it's ready cooked.

  7. Andy 73 Silver badge

    Direct your ire...

    Whilst it's very easy to focus on Boris as the centre of the omnishambles, it's worth remembering that many of these failed projects and schemes were championed and overseen by politicians, businessmen and civil servants who will remain in power long after the floppy haired one has gone.

    Unfortunately, we live in an age where it's far easier to find a scapegoat than deliver something better. For all the armchair experts who will loudly tell you they knew it would all go wrong, the point here is that it is our failure to stand by and let better ideas be sidelined and ignored. ("No one listened to me" is not a statement of political insight or influence.)

    El Reg has been reporting on government IT disasters for as long as it's existed, and yet despite all of this knowledge, we've still not managed to come up with a way to reform service delivery and project selection in government. Hopefully Boris' successor(s) will be more competent, but I doubt this will have much effect on the long list of screw ups our government delivers (regardless of which party is in power).

    1. Eclectic Man Silver badge

      Re: Direct your ire...

      Andy 73> "we've still not managed to come up with a way to reform service delivery and project selection in government"

      There is a large number of posts explaining that getting a well-defined requirement, analysing the requirements and then ensuring that there are no mid-implementation changes results in, usually, an operation system. Payroll systems are the best example. They run every month, they pay people, they get all the taxes, NI, salaries etc. correct almost all of the time. It is when there is scrimping and cost cutting, management inspired changes and poor or changing leadership that systems get messed up. I have personal involvement of several government IT procurements that were delivered on time and worked* (I had no access to budgetary information so can't comment there). These do not get into the news because they are not disasters and therefore not deemed 'attention-worthy'. The Register, sadly, is as guilty of this sort of oversight as the other news media.

      The real issue is that most large government ICT procurements are managed not by senior civil servants with great expertise in ICT, but by hired in contractors, who are skilled at consultancy (get as much money form the client as possible) rather than economic delivery. See https://www.theregister.com/2022/06/10/uk_government_legacy_systems/ about half way down the article.

      *UK government procurements are covered by the OSA, so I am not at liberty to divulge the names or natures of these successes.

      1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

        Re: Direct your ire...

        I also have taken part in such projects. I've also seen at least one institutionally incompetent department (and it was incompentent over 50 years ago when I encountered it a s a member of the public). But the critical phrase in what you point out is "well-defined requirements".

        1. Alan Brown Silver badge

          Re: Direct your ire...

          > But the critical phrase in what you point out is "well-defined requirements".

          I've seen a politically appointed leader create a requirement which wouldn't work and then shop it around vendors until one of them was actually brave enough to say "yes we'll do it" (the others had said it was broken by design and were fired before they started)

          They built it as designed, under budget - and of course it didn't work. Fixing it resulted in costs ballooning out to 25 times the original contract price. Fingers were pointed, harsh wrods exchanged and the idiot in question sued the people who called him an idiot, because they'd hurt his feelings

          After he was removed, the system was audited, found not to work and replaced in 6 weeks with an opensource solution that cost 20% of the price of the original contract

          But somehow those who called the fiasco out for what it was were the evil people....

          Johnson isn't the cause of the problems at Westminster. He's merely a symptom that's resulted in catastrophic positive feedback. One of the more positive aspects of his tenure is that it resulted in many of the corrupt operators feeling secure enough to cast off the blankets, step out of the shadows and operate where the corruption could be fairly easily documented for future action.

          1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

            Re: Direct your ire...

            "future action"

            Sir, I admire your optimism.

            1. Alan Brown Silver badge

              Re: Direct your ire...

              I may be optimistic in thinking it may happen

              I may be pessimistic in thinking it could take 30+ years to happen, as it did after Regency-era corruption was exposed

      2. Andy 73 Silver badge

        Re: Direct your ire...

        You've done the classic thing of telling us how to run a project successfully, not how to get someone else (in this case the government) to run a project successfully.

        That's the point - we *know* there are better ways to do it, but no-one seems to know how to make government do it those better ways.

        How do you stop them from using idiot consultants to manage projects? (This isn't just limited to government. I know a couple of large companies who have lost tens of millions to projects where they called in a globally recognised consultancy - because that's what you do at that level - and then watched them screw up large transformation projects).

        And that leads back to the point I first made - anyone believing that the exit of Boris is going to make a significant change to the way government manages and selects these large projects is going to be sorely disappointed.

        1. Eclectic Man Silver badge

          Re: Direct your ire...

          Andy 73> "You've done the classic thing of telling us how to run a project successfully, not how to get someone else (in this case the government) to run a project successfully."

          Yes, sorry, you are completely correct (have an upvote).

          But my point was that some, maybe even a lot of government IT procurements do actually succeed and work, it is only the ones that are abysmal failures that make the news. We need to get the government to put the people who ran the successful procurements in charge of the next lot, but considering the state of HMG at the moment, I shouldn't hold your breath, if I were you.

          1. R Soul Silver badge
            Flame

            Re: Direct your ire...

            "maybe even a lot of government IT procurements do actually succeed and work"

            Name one. Just one.

            1. Eclectic Man Silver badge

              Re: Direct your ire...

              I am not allowed to.I refer the honourable gentleperson to the statement I gave earlier:

              "*UK government procurements are covered by the OSA, so I am not at liberty to divulge the names or natures of these successes."

        2. Alan Brown Silver badge

          Re: Direct your ire...

          "How do you stop them from using idiot consultants to manage projects?"

          The older I get, the more I favour carefully targetted and discrete assassinations

        3. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Direct your ire...

          but no-one seems to know how to make government do it those better ways

          Actually, people do know how to sort that - it's actually quite easy. All you need to do is have a civil service where the people who know how to do this sort of thing properly can be paid a market rate (give or take a bit for the "not half what they used to be" perks that go with being a civil servant) and employ the right people to do the job.

          Where it falls down is that certain red tops and many politicians see civil service pay as something that should be decided by political dogma rather than realism. In real terms, civil servants went through a decade of below inflation pay increases, we've had a year of no pay rises (i.e. pay freeze, not the insultingly misleading "pay pause"), and this year we've had a well below inflation pay rise. Now for good measure, it's been announced that for dogma, 1 in 5 of us is to go - no mention of reviewing what government wants the CS to deliver and how many people are needed for that, but a statement of cuts with no thought as to how that might impact service delivery.

          So, there we are, a government department with a need for a new system. In general we don't have the best project managers, or the best systems analysts, or the best ... well anything really. We have a few really good people who stay for their own reasons, but in general the best people go to private industry for a lot more money. We might get some consultants in (at a massively higher cost than it would have cost to actually have some skills in house) - but they will always have one eye on what's best for them, not the long term best for the department.

          And of course, even if by some fluke we did manage to get the system specs right, they'll be changed by some minister's sound bite that we'll hear about first in the papers.

          "The usual suspects" (i.e. the big 4 consultancy outfits) can pay for the best of the best when it comes to working the system.

          THAT is the pirmary reason government IT so often "fails", and how to fix it is obvious. But political dogma would not allow such a fix as it would go against the soundbites about "reducing headcount" and "reducing cost" in the civil service.

          And in case it wasn't obvious - posting anon as I am a currently serving civil servant. Working in a department dealing with some high tech engineering and significant safety responsibility. And last time I asked, we were "considerably" under staffed with many unfilled vacancies - partly because we cannot get people with the skills we need to come and work for what's on offer.

      3. Lars Silver badge
        Coat

        Re: Direct your ire...

        @Eclectic Man

        "The Register, sadly, is as guilty of this sort of oversight as the other news media."

        Try to be a bit fair, only car accidents are reported, not all happy endings when people manage to reach their destination without an accident.

        1. Alan Brown Silver badge

          Re: Direct your ire...

          Of course. "news" is reporting the unusual

          This is WHY shootings and kiddy fiddlers get more coverage, despite us (and our children) being statistically safer than ever before

          It's a good thing car-crash IT projects are reported. I would be more worried if they were not and it was regarded as "normal"

          1. First Light

            Re: Direct your ire...

            Many, many children get sexually abused by relatives and strangers without it ever getting within a country mile of a police station. So official statistics about childhood sexual abuse cannot be considered as anything other than a vast underestimation.

        2. Eclectic Man Silver badge

          Re: Direct your ire...

          EM> "These do not get into the news because they are not disasters and therefore not deemed 'attention-worthy'. The Register, sadly, is as guilty of this sort of oversight as the other news media."

      4. Nick Ryan Silver badge

        Re: Direct your ire...

        Having also been involved in some governmental projects in the UK, the amount of blatant corruption involved was staggering. For example we were warned off bidding and told that our tender would not win unless we subcontracted out to specific other companies... companies that miraculously the same people assessing the bids had personal stakes in, or were close friends of. This was subcontracting out work that we could do ourselves.

    2. R Soul Silver badge

      Re: Direct your ire...

      No fucking chance. It'll take at least 30-50 years to get a more competent administration. That's how long is needed to get clueful people with a STEM background into the top jobs in government and politics. If they eve do. Just look at that today. Almost all the MPs, senior civil servants, and policy wonks come from the B ark of lawyers, PPE students, arts graduates, classics scholars and similar pond life.

      Hoping for more government competence is fine. But the signs point in the other direction. The wildly useless and stupid Priti Vacant, Mad Nad and JRM are still in post despite their protector's resignation.

      1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

        Re: Direct your ire...

        Looking at some of the contenders who've been listed there do seem to be a few with real-world experience there. Whether they survive the Westminster back-stabbing is a differen matter.

        But it's going to be difficult to recruit anyone of competence when the reaction of so many is to simply brand them as corrupt without even looking at all closely. Would you or any of the other commentards here step up to that? I wouldn't although I'm a bit long in the tooth for that anyway.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Direct your ire...

          "reaction of so many is to simply brand them as corrupt "

          What other description is appropriate for Boris's enablers? They knew he was unfit for public office. They knew he lied. They knew he was incompetent. They knew he couldn't run a cabinet government. They knew he didn't obey the rules and repeatedly broke the law. They knew his cabinet and government was chaotic and dysfunctional. But they said and did nothing about it for years. Shame on them.

          1. yetanotheraoc Silver badge

            Re: Direct your ire...

            "They knew he was unfit for public office."

            They knew he could throw a good party.

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: Direct your ire...

              I think you meant to say they knew he could throw a good work event.

          2. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

            Re: Direct your ire...

            You have missed my more general point which, I think, raises a serious and significant issue.

            You would like to see honest people with technical nous in government, as would most if not all of us here. But if the default attitude to anyone in politics is unthinkingly hostile how do you think that's going to happen. Who, as an honets techie, would take that step? The hostility is going to select for the thick-skinned, venal or power-hungry and block just the sort of candidates we'd prefer.

            This is something that needs to be addressed and it's going to take a good deal more thought than simply picking a group and dismissing them as corrupt. It's also going to take more thought than simply dismissing the Tories as a party of corruption especially if that involves ignoring what seems to me to be an inherently corrupt association between the unions* and Labour and a number of well documented examples of corruption in local government.

            * Who,in my limited dealings with them as a former member, regard their rank and file as no more than sources of income and cannon fodder.

            1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

              Re: Direct your ire...

              "The hostility is going to select for the thick-skinned, venal or power-hungry and block just the sort of candidates we'd prefer."

              The lean towards US style political campaigning isn't helping either. We see a lot less of the "here's what I can do for the country" and more of "have you seen how bad that guy is? I'm not as bad as that"

            2. jdiebdhidbsusbvwbsidnsoskebid Silver badge

              Re: Direct your ire...

              Once again, the late great Douglas Adams was spot on:

              "those people who must want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it... anyone who is capable of getting themselves made [ruler] should on no account be allowed to do the job."

              1. Lars Silver badge
                Joke

                Re: Direct your ire...

                He never did the job!

                1. Eclectic Man Silver badge
                  Joke

                  Re: Direct your ire...

                  Johnson: the Zaphod Beeblebrox of British politics.

            3. Robert Carnegie Silver badge

              Re: Direct your ire...

              You do it with a civil service that isn't political. Unfortunately, Britain's was scrapped and they pay expensive "consultants" instead.

          3. Stork Silver badge

            Re: Direct your ire...

            That would also apply to the members for the conservative party who chose him, and arguably to a plurality of the voters of UK for electing him (even if I would also have doubts of picking the then opposition)

      2. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

        Re: Direct your ire...

        >It'll take at least 30-50 years to get a more competent administration. That's how long is needed to get clueful people with a STEM background into the top jobs in government and politics

        Just subcontract government to Singapore.

        Ok so it has even less democracy than the UK, but the trains run on time and everyone gets a council house

      3. WereWoof
        WTF?

        Re: Direct your ire...

        This! Why on earth would anyone think that degrees in Classics or Art would be a requirement to run a country?

        1. SundogUK Silver badge

          Re: Direct your ire...

          It's not a requirement. We live in a democracy and there are no 'requirements' to stand for public office. This is a good thing as otherwise the people who determined the 'requirement' would have control and we would no longer be a democracy.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Direct your ire...

            Actually, there #are# requirements, though they set a very low bar. As evidenced by the composition of Boris's clown cabinet and the elections of tossers like Jeremy Corbyn, JRM, Starmer, Johnson, the Fib Dems, Sturgeon, etc.

            And sadly, these requirements do not include honesty or integrity. They don't prevent crooks and the corrupt from standing either.

          2. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

            Re: Direct your ire...

            "It's not a requirement. We live in a democracy and there are no 'requirements' to stand for public office."

            Well, there sort of is. You need money to run an election campaign. Then you need a party to represent if you want any hope of being more than a "lone voice" independent. Once you have a party, you need the members to select you to be their candidate in a particular constituency. All of a sudden, to stand any chance of being elected and advancing up the slippery pole to Cabinet or even party leader and PM, you need other politicians to be of a like mind and support you.

            1. Eclectic Man Silver badge

              Re: Direct your ire...

              I believe that there may also be a bar on people convicted of a crime of dishonesty (no seriously) standing for parliament. (El Reg's legal beagles, please advise.) So, someone convicted of fraud, for example, couldn't stand. Whereas merely hitting someone (yes, John Prescott, I am looking at you) is no hindrance.

        2. Alan Brown Silver badge

          Re: Direct your ire...

          On the other hand, everyone having degrees in engineering, etc is just as dangerous

          The problem is an UNBALANCED government and the bigger problem isn't the mix of people in the chambers but the non-democratic aspects of what's happening behind the scenes

          Mad Nad said the quiet bits out loud on TV, boiling down to: "Only the rich donors matter. They call the tune and what anyone else wants doesn't come into it"

          Unfortunately the other political parties in Britain are similarly captured and the USA became a lost cause many years ago

    3. Irony Deficient

      ("No one listened to me" is not a statement of political insight or influence.)

      “No one listened to me” is most certainly a statement of influence — at an infinitesimal level.

    4. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      Re: Direct your ire...

      "For all the armchair experts who will loudly tell you they knew it would all go wrong"

      Slight problem with the tenses here. All along there have been plenty of people saying it will go wrong. Foresight, not hindsight. If the bystanders could see that why couldn't the participants? Wilful ignorance seems likely.

    5. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

      Re: Direct your ire...

      >Whilst it's very easy to focus on Boris as the centre of the omnishambles,

      Wasn't that his job?

      He was put in by 'those that really run things' (*) to be a distraction and do something amusingly headline grabbingly stupid everytime some evil financial plan was being put in place/

      (* I really hope that things are being run by a secret cabel of evil supervillians, the truth that everyone in power is simply incompetently stupid and venal is distressing)

      1. yetanotheraoc Silver badge

        Re: Direct your ire...

        They are evil, just be thankful they are also incompetent.

      2. Alan Brown Silver badge

        Re: Direct your ire...

        You've got it in one. It was pretty obvious to a lot of people that he's a "stalking horse" - a convenient idiot to distract from the people behind the curtain and a convenient scapegoat for them later on

        He's far too egotistical to even realise he's being played like a fiddle. His refusal to leave is as much a distraction from the mechanations as what's been happening up until how

        Imagine scheming, pandering and planning to be leader your whole life, only to find you're utterly crap at it like everyone was telling you all along

      3. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

        Re: Direct your ire...

        "(* I really hope that things are being run by a secret cabel of evil supervillians, the truth that everyone in power is simply incompetently stupid and venal is distressing)"

        Sadly, I don't think there really is a secret cabal of evil supervillains behind this. That would imply there was some sort of plan[*] behind this. The evidence suggests there is no plan. A, B or otherwise.

        *a clever and apparently competent one but, as ever, with an obvious but fatal flaw, of course :-)

        1. Nick Ryan Silver badge

          Re: Direct your ire...

          I suspect most of the plans are short term "grab and run" type of plans, but upsettingly it doesn't surprise me to see a few longer term structural plans such as the destruction of the NHS in favour of the US scheme where health is a cash cow for the select few.

      4. Adrian 4

        Re: Direct your ire...

        > (* I really hope that things are being run by a secret cabel of evil supervillians, the truth that everyone in power is simply incompetently stupid and venal is distressing)

        So would I, but Hanlon's razor makes it unlikely. People really are just stupid, especially in crowds, like politicians.

    6. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

      Re: Direct your ire...

      "it is our failure to stand by and let better ideas be sidelined and ignored."

      Unfortunately, that's not how democracy works in reality. It's not a Woolworth Pick'n'Mix counter when you cast your vote. You vote for an MP, for whatever reason you think valid, but by definition you are endorsing that partys entire manifesto content and accepting that if they get in power, much of that will change anyway "due to circumstances". The rare independants have little to no power or influence and the rare "honest politician" party member gets subsumed by their party either by being sidelined if they don't toe the line, or giving up some or all of their principles so as to advance in the party.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Direct your ire...

        Technically you aren't voting for party.

        You are voting for the person that best represents your interests.

        In doing so you are delegating to them the power to act on your behalf as they see fit - which may or may not be in accordance with your views or desires.

        They also have a duty to do what is best for all their constituents - not just their electors - a point often ignored.

        However, reality is that, as you say, party alignment and manifestos prevents all this from working. Though from time to time you do find an MP who is respected by the community she or he (we, they, us, innit , ya, non-tertiary, whatever) represents.

        But without political parties and alignements and coalitions it would be impossible to form a government unless you force a president or a monarch to make those choices ... equally fraught with difficulty.

        1. Nick Ryan Silver badge

          Re: Direct your ire...

          This is exactly the problem - party politics is to the complete detriment of what the loudly shouted benefits of democracy are. The US is already a farce by way of this, the UK is pretty close behind but at least there are a few third options. Combine this with career politicians and the only thing that's going to come from it is short termisn, greed, fear an cults of personality. Actually doing what they were voted to do? As in to represent the local people to the best of their ability? A distance consideration for most.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    This man was my boss when he was mayor, and I had the dubious honour of seeing him up close on a number of occasions. On being elected mayor, his team didn't have a clue what the different agencies did, resulting in chaos. Amazingly, we still managed to deliver a successful Olympics, but that was probably because it had already achieved a momentum where even Boris and his chums couldn't f*ck it up. And it was "chums" - he would appoint old school and university acquaintances to unelected posts regardless of their lack of experience.

    I saw him fall off a low stage while giving a speech at city hall, despite repeated warnings to watch his step from a long suffering aide. I also saw the same aide panic when Boris visited our office and she lost track of him. On being told he was last seen wobbling towards the kitchen area she was genuinely concerned he might injure himself.

    The man is a bullsh*tter and lazy buffoon who has only succeeded due to privilege and some people finding him amusing. Personally I want clowns in a circus, not public office.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      I think in all honesty he's also succeeded in part due to who he's up against at the time. Many of the positions he's been in have been "who's maybe least worst" scenarios.

      Not saying the electorate always chose correctly but when there's only two bad options it's flip a coin time.

    2. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      "some people finding him amusing"

      And some people - like the ERG - finding him useful.

      1. Fonant

        The ERG, in turn, being useful to disaster capitalists and rich Russians.

        1. ICL1900-G3

          Oh, dear, some rich capitalists and Russians didn't like that.

    3. Alan Brown Silver badge

      "On being told he was last seen wobbling towards the kitchen area she was genuinely concerned he might injure himself."

      In hindsight perhaps you should have told her he was heading outside?

    4. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

      "The man is a bullsh*tter and lazy buffoon who has only succeeded due to privilege and some people finding him amusing. Personally I want clowns in a circus, not public office."

      Thanks for that first hand insight. I've often suspected he might just be a clown for the public but behind closed doors, he's a clever, scheming arch-villain in the making. Clearly, he really is WYSIWYG. (Also, I just realised, an apt description of his hair)

    5. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      I had the "pleasure" of meeting him once, before he was even Mayor of London. It was about rail services to his constituency (Theresa May, a neighbouring MP was also there) and up to that time I'd assumed he was a clever individual, with the amiable, unfocussed buffoon a persona used on Have I got news for you etc. I was wrong, he was an idiot who thought he could wing it with no preparation.

    6. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      I haven't met the clown personally, but I had enough conversations with one of his ex PAs (while he was mayor), who effectively ran his life for him. Down to the level that she bought his wife's cards, anniversary presents and so on, all on office time and often expensed of course. He was summed as not being stupid, in fact quite smart in some specific ways, but absolutely and totally selfish and considerate of nobody else unless doing so would benefit him personally in some way.

      1. Eclectic Man Silver badge
        Joke

        Re: PAs

        "she bought his wife's cards, anniversary presents and so on"

        What, for all his wives, or just the one he happened to be married to at the time?

        OTOH if Boris was buying you a present, you'd probably want someone else to choose it.

  9. BOFH in Training

    Slimming the government

    "

    Financial Times journalist Sebastian Payne has pointed out that government insiders say the Cabinet Office is "preparing for a scenario where there's not a full cabinet" which would include "slimming the government right down" and "people doing a few jobs."

    "

    So does that mean the civil servants in those departments will just seat around waiting for new ministers or will they be retrenched? Can they even be redeployed temporarily to other positions?

    I know from watching the Yes Minister / Yes Prime Minister documentaries, the civil service hates to cut manpower.

    1. Eclectic Man Silver badge
      Joke

      Re: Slimming the government

      Ask Jacob Rees-Mogg, he's currently the 'Minister for Administrative Affairs'*.

      *AKA The Minister for Brexit Opportunities and Government Efficiency (at time of writing).

      1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

        Re: Slimming the government

        True, and I'd rather have Jim Hacker.

        1. Eclectic Man Silver badge

          Re: Slimming the government

          The unrealistic thing about both 'Yes, Minister' and 'Yes, Prime Minister' was that both the civil servants and the politicians were in some ways quite competent.* Admittedly they all had their failings, but they did at times display actual intelligence, and sometimes a bit of integrity and decency, sometimes subterfuge and sometimes admit to failures.

          I do miss Paul Eddington and Nigel Hawthorne squaring off.

          *Oh, that and the absence of sex pests, but it was a family show.

          1. Dr Paul Taylor

            Yes Prime Minister

            I didn't find it credible when Jim Hacker became Prime MInister, because (despite or because of supposedly having been a polytechnic lecturer) he didn't look like he had the intelligence.

            I see now that I was wrong in believing that to be needed.

            O tempora! O mores!

            1. BOFH in Training

              Re: Yes Prime Minister

              According to this

              https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Hacker

              He had a career in political research, university lecturing and journalism - including editorship of a publication named Reform.

              Isn't Boris also from a journalism background? I think he was also an editor of publication as well.

            2. IWVC

              Re: Yes Prime Minister

              @BOFH in training

              @Dr Paul Taylor

              “Yes Minister” is responsible for the greatest changes in the relationship between politicians and the civil service. The Blair administration of 1997 wanted to change the basis of the civil service from a neutral service to the Crown to a politicised service responsible only to ministers. Blair in effect wanted the US system, whereby the incoming government brings in its own executive. It was very apparent that they had absorbed all the programmes lessons and were terrified of the potential power of the “Sir Humphries”. This was evident by the many rallies held by the incoming ministers of Government Departments for their staff, and their barbed comments about not being outdone by Sir Humphrey. I, and several hundred others, had to suffer John Prescott at the Methodist Central Hall Westminster. The civil service was/is obliged to provide unbiased advice which, in practice, meant that the negative aspects of any policy had to be fully explained. Yes, this could be used to slow down or stop policies, but Ministers had to be made aware of all issues. Obstructionism can be overcome but requires knowledge, skills and management – in Yes Minister, Hacker comes out on top more times than many remember. Blair’s failure to change the remit of the Civil Service had two main consequences. The Cabinet Office was expanded to have tentacles in all other Government departments, and was staffed with more political advisors (political advisors saturated individual departments as well). New posts such as “Chief of staff” appeared. There was an early episode of Yes Prime Minister where Sir Humphrey explains to Hacker that as Prime Minister he no longer has any power to make detailed policy as he no longer runs a department – he has to rely on others. The second change was to make performance related pay compulsory from the top down. This meant that an agreed list of things to be done by set dates had to be met in order to get an annual pay increase. The consequence of that was that you just got on with what you are told and if you realised that the policy you were implementing was faulty, you didn’t stop it because failure to complete the given task resulted in no pay rise. If the outcome was bad, so what, it wasn’t your problem as long as the set task was completed.

              In my view, these are the reasons many projects have rumbled on when they should have been abandoned and terminated. Of course, the expanded Cabinet office and performance pay have been inherited, and used, by several governments of both parties since 1997.

              Boris is not one to get bothered with detail, but that is no excuse for him being involved with Partygate. As a manager, he should have said something and stopped it. BUT the senior civil servant running the Cabinet Office should also have been held responsible but this individual seems to have got away scot-free.

              1. BOFH in Training

                Re: Yes Prime Minister

                "The second change was to make performance related pay compulsory from the top down. This meant that an agreed list of things to be done by set dates had to be met in order to get an annual pay increase."

                With all the delays / cost overruns in various IT and other projects, does that mean civil servants hardly hit targets and so never get the performance part of their pay?

                Or is it still paid out, in a different manner, just like in Yes Prime Minister?

                1. Eclectic Man Silver badge

                  Re: Yes Prime Minister

                  I once worked for an RAF officer, he assured me that everyone in the RAF was rated "Above Average" in their annual reviews, as if anyone was rated "Average" that was the end of their career.

      2. Alan Brown Silver badge

        Re: Slimming the government

        *AKA "the minister for the position we had to create so he couldn't f*ck anything else up"

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Slimming the government

      There were 90,000+ redundancies planned in the Civil Service *before* BJ resigned. Make of that what you will.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Slimming the government

        And yet somehow the mandarins will convert that into 50,000 new positions, all funded by the taxpayer.

        Still, at least we're still doing better than France. They have so many "fonctionnaires" that the tax burden is 52% of GDP. Makes our 33% look almost reasonable. Almost.

        1. Alan Brown Silver badge

          Re: Slimming the government

          ~75% of the current UK tax burden is state pensions or pension-related costs and it's only going to get worse

          Make of that what you will

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Slimming the government

            True, as more of the baby boomers retire and live longer, and there are fewer people working to pay the taxes that fund the pensions, something has to give. Best to make your own arrangemenmts while you can.

            Again, though, be glad you're not in France. Almost all pensions are paid from state-run funds (a bit like the old UK SERPS scheme), private/workplace pensions exist but are usually tiny, maybe contributing 5-10% of a person's pension at most. General retirement age is 62, many public servants can go at 55 or earlier, and any attempt to change that invariably results in strikes and fallen governments. In the latest election, one party promising to cut pension age to 60 got 80 seats, people simply have no understanding of the financial disaster that is approaching.

            Even with the high taxes, the fact that there are now only 2.4 people paying for each pension when it used to be 4 means that the general funds are heavily in negative terrority, paying out more than they receive, and legally they are not allowed to run a deficit. When the money is gone, they legally have to stop paying (but of course they can't).

            Buy your popcorn now.

          2. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Slimming the government

            ~75% of the current UK tax burden is state pensions or pension-related costs

            That's a lie.

            Last year, state pensions accounted for around 14% of government spending (or tax burden as you call it). The biggest item of government expenditure is health. It gets ~18% of the overall budget. Around 11% goes on dole money, housing allowance and other social security payments.

            The IFS article below says "Together, health, social security and education account for more than half of all spending."

            https://ifs.org.uk/taxlab/key-questions/what-does-government-spend-money

    3. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      Re: Slimming the government

      "So does that mean the civil servants in those departments will just sit around waiting for new ministers"

      More likely they'll heave a sigh of relief and get a few things done without ministerial interference and changes of mind.

      1. Cederic Silver badge

        Re: Slimming the government

        Yeah, they'll be able to pursue their Europhile agenda without having to disguise it from the elected Government they've so intent on subverting.

        Case in point: The Home Office staff plotting in public to derail the provision of security and safety to refugees in Rwanda.

        1. Nick Ryan Silver badge

          Re: Slimming the government

          By this you mean people succumbing to their conscience and to try and stop or delay the illegal deportation of people to a regime that they have no or little capability to survive in? There is absolutely no "security and safety of refugees in Rwanda", there is almost certain poverty, disenfranchisement and likely incarceration or death. Read the reports from the independent organisations take on this, not whatever your favourite hate filled newspaper churns out.

          You sound like one of the scum who line the docks along the channel shouting hate at the people who rescue other people from near certain death in the sea, all because the people they are rescuing speak a different language, have a different religion, were born with a different skin tone.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Slimming the government

            all because the people they are rescuing speak a different language, have a different religion, were born with a different skin tone.

            Ah, of course. You don't (or don't want to) understand people's real motivations, so you put it to down to racism & bigotry. That's a facile approach which says a lot about how your mind works.

            These people have just come from, and crossed, other very safe countries with a proven record of accepting refugees and where they were legally required to ask for asylum. Instead they've been duped by people smugglers into a dangerous crossing to a country where they erroneously believe they'll be welcomed and given jobs/money. Britain already accepts a higher proportion of asylum seekers than many other European countries, but is it really surprising that people struggling to make ends meet resent seeing their ever-increasing taxes used to support someone who thinks they can just catch a boat over & be given a new life at taxpayers expense?

            Those people should be prevented from ever getting in the boats, and required to request asylum in France, Germany, Italy, or any of the other countries they crossed. Clearly France doesn't want to do that, much easier to dump the problem on the UK.

            Spare your ire & insults for the criminals that facilitate this shameful trade, not those who also see themselves as victims of it.

            1. Eclectic Man Silver badge

              Re: Slimming the government

              Sorry, AC, but I don't think you are quite correct.

              1. There is no legal requirement to apply for asylum in any country.

              2. France and Germany have accepted far more asylum seekers than the UK.

              3. The UK insists that each member of a family obtains their own visa for entry, even parents and their young children or babies must each have a visa, and the applications are not processed as a batch, but separately.

              For numbers, see, e.g.

              https://www.nrc.no/shorthand/fr/a-few-countries-take-responsibility-for-most-of-the-worlds-refugees/index.html

              https://www.statista.com/statistics/293350/asylum-grants-in-europe/

              https://www.unhcr.org/uk/asylum-in-the-uk.html

              1. Anonymous Coward
                Anonymous Coward

                Re: Slimming the government

                1. There is no legal requirement to apply for asylum in any country.

                The "Dublin protocol" lays down specific rules for EU countries, including that refugees' asylum claims must be processed in the first safe country they come to. That would usually be Italy or France.

                2. France and Germany have accepted far more asylum seekers than the UK.

                Absolute numbers don't tell the whole story, since they are obviously affected by the number of applicants. Last year, for example, France had 140k applicants, and accepted 25% of them, Germany took 35% of the 85K who applied. The UK accepted 65% of the 56K requests it received.

                1. Eclectic Man Silver badge

                  Re: Slimming the government

                  Hi, AC, I found this:

                  1: from https://ukandeu.ac.uk/the-facts/what-is-the-dublin-regulation/

                  "The Dublin Regulation (also known as Dublin III) is EU law setting out which country is responsible for looking at an individual’s asylum application. This is usually the country where the asylum seeker first arrives in the EU. The Dublin Regulation applies to EU Member States and Iceland, Norway, Switzerland and Liechtenstein. The UK was bound by the Dublin Regulation until 31 December 2020.

                  In September 2020, the EU adopted the New Pact on Migration and Asylum after consultations with the European Parliament, Member States and others. The New Pact sets out that no Member State should disproportionately take responsibility but that all should participate."

                  So, not a rule or legal requirement.

                  2. I'd be interested to see your reference for the statistics you quoted.

                  And as for (my) 3, just seen this on the Guardian web site:

                  "A British resident who is stranded in Jamaica with her baby has been told by the Home Office the child cannot come to the UK because he has an “established life” on the Caribbean island."

                  https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/jul/11/woman-who-gave-birth-in-jamaica-stranded-after-baby-refused-entry-to-uk

          2. codejunky Silver badge

            Re: Slimming the government

            @Nick Ryan

            "You sound like one of the scum who line the docks along the channel shouting hate at the people who rescue other people from near certain death in the sea, all because the people they are rescuing speak a different language, have a different religion, were born with a different skin tone."

            I thought it was because they were breaking the law to sneak into the country in the hopes of jumping the queue of legal immigration and avoiding the security checks that would normally be done to reduce the number of serious criminals entering the country? Of course the excuse is they are fleeing the terror and persecution of a third world hell hole (aka France) in their little dinghy.

            1. Nick Ryan Silver badge

              Re: Slimming the government

              I thought it was because they were breaking the law to sneak into the country in the hopes of jumping the queue of legal immigration and avoiding the security checks that would normally be done to reduce the number of serious criminals entering the country? Of course the excuse is they are fleeing the terror and persecution of a third world hell hole (aka France) in their little dinghy.

              Do you seriously believe that serious criminals will be risking their lives to cross the English Channel in a dinghy, with their partners and children. These are desperate people, risking their lives for a better, safer life. They shouldn't have to. Nobody should have to do such a thing, but when it comes to the life of your partner and children, what would you not do? Would you stand by and see them tortured and killed, or would you try to take them to somewhere where your children could have a future? That's what most of these people are trying to seek, not a life as a serious criminal. As for the risk of serious criminals entering the UK, I suspect considerably more just walk in normally or live here already.

              1. codejunky Silver badge

                Re: Slimming the government

                @Nick Ryan

                "Do you seriously believe that serious criminals will be risking their lives to cross the English Channel in a dinghy"

                Yes. Because legal asylum may not be available to murderers/rapists/etc.

                "These are desperate people, risking their lives for a better, safer life."

                As I said, fleeing the hellhole of the third world known as France. And to get to France passing through those other backward hellholes of Europe. The UK must be a freaking paradise.

                "They shouldn't have to. Nobody should have to do such a thing, but when it comes to the life of your partner and children, what would you not do?"

                Your right. Dont stay in a safe country. Dont apply for asylum in a safe rich country but instead (your description is better life) become an economic migrant but break the law to enter the country of your choice. Risking the lives of women and children (so much for equality) is obviously worth it to leave rich countries in Europe to get to the one they want to reach. Cant say I would do that to my family.

                "Would you stand by and see them tortured and killed"

                Have you highlighted these atrocities by the French? Maybe the human rights organisations need to know that the various European countries including France (where they travel from) is torturing and killing them.

                "That's what most of these people are trying to seek, not a life as a serious criminal"

                Instead of applying for asylum like other asylum seekers they intend to travel through Europe and illegally breach the UK borders. Some of who will be doing due to their criminal background. Since no official statistics are kept on such here are some examples from a quick search-

                https://www.migrationwatchuk.org/news/2021/04/12/victims-of-the-uks-failure-to-enforce-its-borders

                "As for the risk of serious criminals entering the UK, I suspect considerably more just walk in normally or live here already."

                So since criminals exist here why do you want to import more? Do note that illegally entering the country by itself is a crime.

                1. Anonymous Coward
                  Anonymous Coward

                  Re: Slimming the government

                  "https://www.migrationwatchuk.org"

                  More Tufton Street reposting. Hope one is getting one's share of the grift money.

    4. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

      Re: Slimming the government

      "So does that mean the civil servants in those departments will just seat around waiting for new ministers or will they be retrenched? Can they even be redeployed temporarily to other positions?"

      No, the Ministries and departments still need to be there and still carry on doing their jobs. The difference is they may get a part-time Minister as boss who can't spend too much time at any one Ministership, overseeing stuff. With less political interference, maybe MORE will get done :-)

    5. Adrian 4

      Re: Slimming the government

      > Financial Times journalist Sebastian Payne has pointed out that government insiders say the Cabinet Office is "preparing for a scenario where there's not a full cabinet" which would include "slimming the government right down" and "people doing a few jobs."

      That sounds astoundingly similar to 'one sandwich short of a picnic' and similar phrases.

      > So does that mean the civil servants in those departments will just seat around waiting for new ministers or will they be retrenched? Can they even be redeployed temporarily to other positions?

      They will be redeployed temporarily to sitting around somewhere else

    6. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Slimming the government

      "'Financial Times journalist Sebastian Payne has pointed out that government insiders say the Cabinet Office is "preparing for a scenario where there's not a full cabinet" '

      As in... 'an administration short of a full cabinet'

  10. wolfetone Silver badge
    Pint

    Good.

    I'm glad the big blonde gobshite is going. I'm having a work event to celebrate.

  11. Potemkine! Silver badge

    The picture in "The Economist" is fantastic.

    It will be hard to find somebody more clownish but as the US showed 5 years ago, never abandon hope on this specific point.

    1. Eclectic Man Silver badge
      Joke

      Boris not goodenough

      https://www.economist.com

    2. Nick Ryan Silver badge

      the UK managed to self inflict more stupidity and harm than ever possible and we were the absolute clowns of stupidity on the world stage, nobody could beat that.

      Until the US quite literally trumped this achievement.

  12. chivo243 Silver badge
    FAIL

    Clownfall?

    I think their automagic autocorrect changed ClownFail to Clownfall. Can't get much worse than a failing clown! Not to disparage real clowns, with makeup, in a circus, mind you. OK you got me, Politics are very very much like a Circus...

    1. Dan 55 Silver badge
      1. F. Frederick Skitty Silver badge

        Re: Clownfall?

        "But there was a suitcase of wine".

        "Have you ever tried working with Nadine Dorries"?

        Genius.

  13. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

    Somehow today's Dilbert has some resonance: https://dilbert.com/strip/2022-07-07

  14. elsergiovolador Silver badge

    IR35

    Don't forget IR35 changes.

    How to get failed Labour tax policy and make it magnitude worse? Employ Rishi to mess it up.

    Now the whole freelancing market is broken.

  15. Dan 55 Silver badge

    The resignation speech without the word "resign" in it

    With all those people (whoever they were) stood behind him, it looked like a brand relaunch, not a resignation. He could get up to all sorts of mischief in the next three months, including not leaving in autumn.

  16. cornetman Silver badge
    WTF?

    > Then it budgeted £37 billion for a Test and Trace system

    Jesus H Christ. How much?

    That must have passed me by while living in a foreign land at the moment.

    What could possibly cost that much money? Other than perhaps a small country?

    1. Cederic Silver badge

      It didn't. See the discussion earlier in the comments.

  17. Lars Silver badge
    Coat

    Rolls-Royce SMR

    As expected Rolls-Royce SMR are mentioned among comments but they are not here yet.

    Quoting the Wikipedia:

    "In November 2021, the UK government provided funding of £210 million to further develop the design, partly matched by £195 million of investment by Rolls Royce Group, BNF Resources UK Limited and Exelon Generation Limited.[8][9] At that point they expected the first unit would be completed in the early 2030s.".

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolls-Royce_SMR

    Of course there are other companies too in the process of developing them.

    And regarding the molten-salt thorium reactors, several countries are involved developing them but nobody can deliver a working reactor yet.

    1. Alan Brown Silver badge

      Re: Rolls-Royce SMR

      China has had a 2MW test unit operating at Wuwei since October 2021

      This is intended to validate Oak Ridge work but because they started it on thorium (rather than kickstarting with U235 or U233) it is likely to take a while to get meaningful results out of the thing

      There's a 300MW (100MWe) unit being built alongside it, intended to test actual electrical production once the small unit has proven itself

      Our societies have been built around cheap energy and access to it. Assuming this works it changes China from a peer to a leader on the world stage as they'll be selling this heavily into other countries

  18. Lars Silver badge
    Happy

    I won't express my opinion regarding Boris as it's much a rather internal problem for Britain.

    1. Fruit and Nutcase Silver badge

      If only...

      Some of his supporters are touting him as a special envoy to Kyiv. Expect lots of flag waving, hundreds and thousands of private jet time, with an official photographer in tow, and nothing much else.

      https://duckduckgo.com/?q=boris+envoy+ukraine&t=hs&va=l&ia=web

  19. aldolo

    a sentence

    bj is going to be murdered as soon as he loose the present role protection by his russian friends

    1. Claverhouse Silver badge

      Re: a sentence

      How come people who do a great deal of harm to Russia --- and to many other peoples --- such as Trump and Boris, get to be accused of being Russian spies ?

      .

      It's like a go-to nonsensical regime ritual denunciation in revolutionary times like 'trotskyite kulak', 'rootless cosmopolitan', 'ci-devant lackey', etc..etc..

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: a sentence

        Because it is basically now proven fact that the Tory Party accepted a very large amount of money over many years from Russian sources (direct and indirect)?

        And because Boris personally supressed a report from an inquiry into potential Russian influence on the Brexit Campaign which has been sufficiently well leaked to confirm that there was some?

        And because he finally (and presumably accidentally) admitted to a un-documented, un-monitored meeting with Lebedev - a former KGB agent and Tory Party donor - whilst he was a Government Minister (a very strict no-no)? (In addition to all the other times he met him but the minutes/documents can't be released for "reasons")

        So I can't comment on whether this "always" happens and is therefore sometimes not fair. But it seems a pretty reasonable accusation this time. He's only supporting Ukraine (against Russia) now because the public forced him to. He and his government dragged their feet at the start. But now, from Putin's point of view, Boris has committed the ultimate sin: he didn't stay bribed and has turned on his paymasters. He probably should be worried.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: a sentence

          Wow, Angela Rayner reads ElReg (when she's not at Glyndebourne). Who knew!

        2. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

          Foreign Moles to the Left of them, Perfumed Trojans to the Right of them = a Disastrous Mess

          And because he finally (and presumably accidentally) admitted to a un-documented, un-monitored meeting with Lebedev - a former KGB agent and Tory Party donor - whilst he was a Government Minister (a very strict no-no)? .... AC

          And did Priti Patel not tar herself with very similar dodgy brush strokes although in her case with Israel rather than Russia being highlighted?

          Don't these folk/agents know what they should be doing without making such fundamental elementary errors which are impossible to overlook and sweep out of sight and consciousness under the carpet or behind the curtains?

        3. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: a sentence

          Because it is basically now proven fact that the Tory Party accepted a very large amount of money over many years from Russian sources

          Proven? By whom? Just repeating scurrilous lies doesn't prove anything.

          1. Nick Ryan Silver badge

            Re: a sentence

            The publicly available lists of donors and amounts.

            That's not "scurrilous lies"

          2. Fruit and Nutcase Silver badge
            Alert

            Re: a sentence

            Let's see what happens when the words Russian, Donor, Tory and Tennis are put into a search engine...

            https://duckduckgo.com/?q=russian+donor+tory+tennis&t=ha&va=j&ia=web

            Above board as far as the donation rules go...

            https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/major-boris-johnson-donor-suspected-26946479

            ...still a lot of money - for nothing? Not at all

  20. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Coulrophobia Johnsonian

    A very specific fear that is felt by a large proportion of the community.

    There is no known cure.

  21. J.G.Harston Silver badge

    SUBS!!!!!

    "Meanwhile, UK scientists are being cut off from European funding, post-Brexit."

    AAARRGHH!!!!!!

    post-X is a *PRE*positional adjective.

    You need either:

    "Meanwhile, UK scientists are being cut off from European funding ***AFTER** Brexit."

    or

    "Meanwhile, UK scientists are being cut off from post-Brexit European funding."

    1. 42656e4d203239 Silver badge
      Pint

      Re: SUBS!!!!!

      Good catch. Have a pint ---->

      P.s. That's what the corrections link is for at the bottom of the article...

  22. trevorde Silver badge

    Only one person can save is now

    Dido Harding!

    1. Danny 2

      Re: Only one person can save is now

      Keir Starmer can run as Tory party leader now that Durham police have cleared him.

      MPs swap parties, and that is the PM that Labour would fear most at a general election.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Only one person can save is now

        "...and that is the PM that Labour would fear most at a general election"

        PMSL

        The next party leader to go will be SKS due to his storming performance in leading the most effective government opposition since the war !

        A Southwark Boo-Boy with no policies of his own. He'll be miffed that Boris hasn't left immediately so he can take credit for it.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Only one person can save is now

      Can't we have DangerMouse and Penfold instead ?

  23. Jerry CB.

    Angela Rayner & Jeremy Corbyn : dream team.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Thunderbolts and Lightening...

      Would that combo result in a glorious 5 year plan written in "Street" that wouldn't launch an oil barge ?

  24. Bruce Ordway

    Just another opinion on Boris

    Viewing form the U.S. I find myself want to blame the people who have enabled Boris ( much like "The Donald" here ).

    I've had mixed emotions about Boris as a person though.

    He does seem like he might actually be an amusing drinking partner to hang around with on the weekend?

    However I can't imagine why anyone would EVER rely on him to manage anything responsibly?

    1. Nick Ryan Silver badge

      Re: Just another opinion on Boris

      Yes, it's all about the lie enablers and rabid followers who will see no fault even when it's spelt out in detail in front of them. Every serial liar needs lackeys to enable their lies. Unfortunately there are too many of them.

      BoJo shouldn't be trusted with looking after his own sandwich, and absolutely definitely never in a position of responsibility, let alone public service.

      I do agree though, he tends to come across as someone who would be amusing to know as a drinking partner. However there are too many males that I know who are the same, yet are different to their partners and in reality are really horrible, disgusting people. But they are still "one of the lads".

  25. Fruit and Nutcase Silver badge

    Boris Force One

    Hopefully the RAF Voyager that Boris got repainted in white will be reverted to military colours and the aircraft utilisation restored to what it should be.

    As for Boris' in-your-face Union Jack flag fetish - hopefully that too will be forgotten

  26. Teejay

    Crossover?

    I remember reading this article in the Guardian some minutes ago.

  27. Trotts36

    Boris Johnson period the worst ?

    The framing that the BJ period was terrible is amusing; Whitehall just cannot do IT projects at all, the level of competency in civil service seems to be awful. Ironic really as Boris promised Cummins free range to actually overhaul the civil service …

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Boris Johnson period the worst ?

      Long, long ago I was working on a Gov IT project, it had to do with the merger of Internal Revenue Department with HM Customs to from HMRC. I can't vouch for everything in there, but all the "systems" I had to deal with were essentially a bunch of Excel files held together with string and sellotape, mostly being taken care of by people who were (just about) competent enough, and who with some training and leadership could have formed a solid team. But (usual story) the management were unaware of the 'on-the-ground' requirements, and the stated project requirements were driven by political fantasy far divorced from reality.

      As some other many commenter mentioned already, it's insane to pay external consultants 2-3X what you would pay a full-time employee just because the ministry doesn't want the increased headcount in it's stats, or because it shows up better on the balance sheet as a one-off expenditure than a recurring expenditure (even though the 'one-off' is repeated in each years' budget and so is, in fact, recurring!!). Not to mention the motivation - An internal employee wants to get things done and over with, externals, however technically brilliant, have a vested interest in long drawn-out implementations rather than getting things to work quickly, even if bit by bit.

  28. steviebuk Silver badge

    Test and Trace

    Jesus, I still don't know how the fuck they came to that figure just for an app. Considering one man in South Korea built his own, on his own time. I assume the cost was for all the "consultants" and they went out and bought aloud of Apple gear so they could go and code in Starbucks. All Starbucks drinks and meals were included in the fears.

  29. Fruit and Nutcase Silver badge
    Joke

    Remember Kids... Do Your Homework!

    If Boris had paid more attention to the tutoring given from the IT mistress, he'd have turned around government IT projects

  30. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Yet another hill to die on...

    What is it with the Politicians. lets pick an iconic branding to follow and die on a hill for...

    Technology is one that they seem to have forgotten that Churchill sold off to the USA as part of getting that special relationship back in 1940 started. (Along with the abandonment of all colonies and surrendering any overseas territories that the USA wants as a base.)

    Any and all cutting edge science is handed to the yanks as first dibbs to pick over, the list of what they took is endless (it literally is endless, everything has to some extent of our modern society been invented in the UK). you patent it here, its theirs first dibbs. Almost making it defacto to patient in Switzerland first, to protect rights holders interests from US corporate and defence industries.

    One big belch by the Sun and its all gone in minutes, we just had a second CME near miss (this one being stealth) occur this week. the last big one took out a host of starlink satellite's. This weeks may have ben a near miss for them on this weeks launch. One day there willl be a really big CME. Then we get reset to 1800, which will be fun wake up call. heir lets develop technology will be opening the pitts, building furnaces for smelting, breeding horses, recycling everything for raw materials and getting the farmland back into production again.

  31. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Upper class twit of the year

    Still

POST COMMENT House rules

Not a member of The Register? Create a new account here.

  • Enter your comment

  • Add an icon

Anonymous cowards cannot choose their icon

Other stories you might like