Retired Aviation Professional
Joined March 2010
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Standing charges North Wales highest in UK ?
What say you @MarkTamiMP ?
National Grid debt is safe, as they say, safe as houses in fact.
A monopoly supplier allowed by regulators to add the costs of their debts to customer bills, while the debt itself builds an ever-bigger balance sheet and company value - is obscene. The 9.8% return on equity is wrong for such a safe investment - this is infrastructure and the rates of return for that kind of asset are normally half what OFGEM are allowing. If we adjust the rate of return to market norms - we could significantly reduce levels of debt required and the costs that get loaded onto our bills. OFGEM are not regulating energy companies properly nor are OFWAT - we have a systemic fault in the regulation of privately owned monopoly suppliers of vital services.
We need to take proper control of these industries. In the interests of people, business and the wider economy.
briefs.co/news/national-grid…
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Care to Fact Check this @BBCr4today ,@BBCNewsnight ?
Well after today’s announcement from the Bank of England, there is something very, very, very wrong in the system.
So … let me get this straight:
* British Gas made a profit of £1.3bn between January & June
* BP announced profits of £6.95 billion between April and June alone
* Shell has profited by £9.4bn in a year
The MEN at the top:
* John Pettigrew, boss of National Grid received £6.5m bonus on top of his salary
* Chris O’Shea, chief executive of British Gas owner Centrica was paid almost £2m last year in salary and benefits
* Centrica's non-executive directors were paid almost £1m
* Scottish Power's CEO Keith Anderson is on £1.15m.
* E.On boss Michael Lewis is on £1m
* EDF's Simone Rossi is also on £1m
* And their top execs enjoyed a share of £4.65m
* Peter Simpson of Anglian Water earned a £1.3m pay package
* Welsh Water bosses awarded themselves bonuses of over £930,000
* Severn Trent bosses awarded themselves bonuses of £5.56m
* Thames Water's Sarah Bentley, received a £727,000 bonus on top of her £2m annual salary
Meanwhile there are...
* People who haven't had breakfast and/or lunch TODAY, because they can't afford it.
* People using FoodBanks because food is becoming more of a luxury than a necessity.
* Children celebrating a birthday without presents.
* Parents worrying about new school uniforms - and some schools enforcing rules which are not cost-effective.
* People who can't get to work because they can't afford to put petrol in their cars/pay for public transport anymore.
* People who are working so much they're making themselves ill, and they STILL CAN'T AFFORD to pay their bills.
* People who have been given fines by these same energy/water companies because they couldn't afford to pay their bills in the first place - increasing their debt.
* Customers being told to do STAR JUMPS TO KEEP WARM for crying out loud!
* Hose pipe bans when gallons of water leak away everyday.
* Elderly people NOT DRINKING because they're worried about running out of water!!!
All this and energy prices are set to rise up to 75% in October...
THIS IS MADNESS!.. I'm all for supporting profits … I'm not for supporting greed at the cost of lives of others.
Something needs to change.
Why is customers' money being used to make life more comfortable for those who are making life more intolerable for the rest of us?
I actually don't understand how the energy companies are allowed to get away with this and why the government aren't stopping them instead of handing out money.....
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Would be good if @andyburnham visited Chester to see what ShareShop was doing for the city.
Did you know that Chester’s ShareShop opp The Ivy, and next to Chester Amphitheatre, helps fund a Day Centre in Chester for people who are homeless, called Share Homeless Action Centre located in St. Martin’s Clinic behind Chester Market.
As well as supporting people who are sleeping rough in the City we also provide assistance to people fleeing from Wars around the World and are proud to have a number of families from Ukraine volunteering with us ❤️
If you would like to donate or volunteer at either our ShareShop or SHAC please visit: Shareaid.co.uk
@chestertweetsuk @ShitChester @ChesterBoard
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@RMBandService magical. All one needs. Top musicians.
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Is this correct @Ofwat?
Thames Water has just increased bonus payouts for "key management personnel" from £2.8 million to £4.1 million – despite being £18.5 billion in debt and causing several category 1 pollution incidents.
Thames bypassed Ofwat's bonus ban, which ONLY targets chief executives and finance managers, by awarding the bulk of the £4.1 million to other executive team and board members.
We were told privatisation would bring efficiency and lower costs – instead we got shitty rivers and some of the highest bills for water in the world.
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Here's one for @tfwrail . 👍
A passenger who recently used the Transport for Wales service from Frodsham to LJLA spoke of their positive experience:
"The train arrived at Liverpool South Parkway on time and it was only an 11-minute wait for the connecting bus to the airport.
"Having no suitcase to check in I went straight through to security which took under five minutes to clear.
"After a stroll through to the departure lounge I checked the time and it was 13:54 - less than one hour from Frodsham station right the way through to the airport shops and bars!"
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I think @RobbieRinder says it all.
We often disagreed but privately Ann Widdecombe never confused status with worth. She treated everyone with the same dignity whether they could do anything for her or not. That was her idea of justice. After such a terrible death, she is owed no less.
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🤔 Um are we beginning to see a pattern here.
Someone quietly placed a massive $920 million crude oil short at 3:40 a.m. ET this morning.
Just 70 minutes later, Axios reported the U.S. and Iran were close to a 14 point deal to end the war. Oil prices crashed, and someone made a fortune.
The golden age of corruption.
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Just remember this. @WelshLabour and reintroduce it.
Welsh farms, Welsh milk into Welsh schools.
In 1946 the British government introduced free school milk for every child in the country. One third of a pint, every school day, from the age of five to the age of fifteen.
The milk was whole. Full-fat. From British dairy herds. It was delivered to the school gate in small glass bottles with foil caps and left on the doorstep in metal crates, where it sat in the sun until morning break if the weather was warm and developed a slightly suspect taste that an entire generation of British adults can still describe with uncomfortable precision.
The generation that grew up on school milk was, by every anthropometric measure, the healthiest generation of British children ever recorded.
Average height increased. Bone density improved. Dental health, despite the sugar in everything else, improved. Iron deficiency rates among school-age children dropped. The growth charts that the Ministry of Health had been keeping since the war showed a consistent, measurable, year-on-year improvement that tracked precisely onto the introduction of the milk programme.
In 1971 Margaret Thatcher, then Education Secretary, cut free school milk for children over seven. The tabloids called her Thatcher the Milk Snatcher. She was vilified. She kept the policy.
The next generation of British children, the ones who grew up without the daily third of a pint, were measurably less healthy than the one before.
The growth charts show it. The dental records show it. The conscription medicals, while they lasted, showed it. The thing the milk had been providing, the calcium, the vitamin D, the vitamin A, the complete amino acid profile, the conjugated linoleic acid, the fat-soluble nutrients that a growing skeleton requires in order to reach its genetic potential, was no longer arriving at morning break in a glass bottle with a foil cap.
It was replaced, eventually, by nothing. Or by a carton of fruit juice. Or by a packet of crisps from the vending machine that appeared in the school corridor in the 1990s.
The generation that drank the milk is now in its seventies and eighties. They are, on average, taller, stronger-boned, and longer-lived than the generation that came after them.
The milk was not magic.
The milk was milk.
It was the thing the body needed, delivered at the time the body needed it, at a cost the government considered acceptable until it didn't.
The cost of not providing it has been rather higher.
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Something to think about?
A zoo in Belgium turned its parking lot into one of the largest solar power plants in the world.
Pairi Daiza, voted Europe's best zoo, covered 80% of its 7,000 parking spaces with 62,750 solar panels.
The installation produces 20 megawatts of peak power, which is more than the entire zoo consumes.
The surplus charges electric vehicles at onsite stations and sells the rest back to the grid.
It's the largest solar carport in the world, and it was built on land that was already paved, over cars that were already there. Nobody had to choose between wilderness and energy production.
Covering all existing US parking lots with solar panels could generate 1.7 trillion kilowatt-hours of electricity, which would power half the country.
Why aren't we funding this?
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New design for @SquadronPrints maybe ?
Source: BBC
share.google/GZeevRiqrHi62Cy…
Sad to think a New Museum for the Royal Marines requires people to Fund Raise.
The Royals have given so much to this country and it's allies since 1664.
Governments the shame is on you.
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And to think some people of WALES would vote for that.
Nigel Farage has called Welsh people “Foreign speakers” in a Cameo video.
I hate to break it to you Mr Farage, but if you read a history book you would realise English is more foreign in the UK than Welsh.
He said: “Gutted I couldn’t attend the wedding. I wanted to come, but I heard that half the guests were Welsh, and I don’t know. Who knows what would have happened with all those foreign speakers there. I don’t know.”
This is at a time that his party are trying to convince people in Wales that they should elect them to the Welsh Parliament.
Big credit to the Guardian for breaking this story: theguardian.com/uk-news/ng-i…
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Guinness Zero is a far better drink. #JustSaying
£2 pints of Black Heart. All day today. No booking needed.
Before you say whatever you're going to say - it's a £2 pint. It's St Patrick's Day. No sneaky trick. No fire sale. Just here to be enjoyed. I know what I’ll be doing.
...In other news, if my boss asks, I'm sick on Wednesday.
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That's the way to do it.👍
🇨🇦🇸🇪 BREAKING: Saab floats the idea of a Gripen fighter production hub in Canada, not just for Ottawa, but potentially for exports, including Ukraine.
Could create 10,000 jobs and boost Canada’s air power while complementing a mixed fleet with F-35s. The first jets could start in Sweden, with production shifting to Canada.