September 2023
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Charity begins
I see that the Labour Party has abandoned its plan to remove charity status from independent schools. This is not because of a Damascene change of heart, but because it has discovered that a change in the statutory definition of...
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A Reinvention of Civilisation
Helen Thompson's article in a recent Sunday Times reminds us that our Net-Zero legislation passed through the UK parliament in indecent haste in the dog days of the May government. Her article: Why net zero requires a reinvention of civilisation,...
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Pronouns assigned at birth
Last week's update from the Bath Comms Team (always an informative though abbreviated read) urged us all to put our pronouns on our Teams Profile: "At the University of Bath, we encourage staff and students to share their pronouns. Sharing...
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2030 and all that
A while back one of our many recent prime ministers decided – pretty much on a whim – to bring the date forward when petrol / diesel cars could no longer be sold in the UK. Rather than select 2035...
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My responsive MP
Reading in The Times that “ministers … have agreed to work on a government-backed scheme to convert domestic oil-fired boilers to run on green fuels”, did not fill me with much confidence, especially as new oil boilers were due to...
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Where are today’s real green militants?
I read an article the other day – I forget where – trying to argue that groups such as Just Stop Everything and Exhaustion Rebellion are the modern equivalent of the Suffragettes; that is “people who are prepared to be...
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Yes Minister and DfE Curriculum Jousting
Almost everyone I know is expecting a change of government at the next general election, and expecting it to be decisive; that is to say no hung parliaments, minority regimes, or small majorities. Landslides are in the offing, I'm promised. Well,...
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A game of chicken in the North Sea
On of our cunning net zero goals is to have installed wind capacity of 50GW by 2030. It is currently 15. Whilst that always looked a stretch, I think the elastic has just broken. In its annual auction of building...
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Hydrogen Times
Did you know that, from 2025, the government was planning to impose a £118 / year charge on domestic energy bills to cover the cost of producing hydrogen. Me neither, and I try to keep an eye on such things....
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People on lower incomes drive older cars
Who do you suppose said this: "We need to be conscious about the economic effects that any measures have on different groups within society, because we know that people on lower incomes tend to drive older cars that are going...