News broke this week that Grant Shapps (infamous for unleashing Low Traffic Neighbourhoods on a locked down population in 2020) is to unveil a Government campaign urging us to turn down our thermostats by two degrees this winter. We will also be told to reduce the flow-rate in our boilers in an initiative originally vetoed by Liz Truss but now revived. This complements TV advertising broadcast nightly by water companies such as Affinity telling us to reduce our time in the shower by two minutes. There are many reasons to object to this, not least as an unwarranted example of state nannying. But coming on the heels of the Autumn Statement, it is part of a much more worrying overall trend.
Spectator editor Fraser Nelson confessed on the Coffee House podcast at the weekend that, following last week’s Statement, he’d decided against one of his cover options for the latest issue: it showed, he said, “Rishi Sunak and Jeremy Hunt standing over a grave putting some earth into it. And the headline I was going to do was ‘The Burial of Growth [or] The End of Growth'”.
It’s a pity he didn’t run with it. What we are witnessing is indeed the end of growth and the Spectator-cover-that-never-was would have delivered a much-needed point: it’s as if the suppression of growth is the plan. Watching Hunt deliver the Autumn Statement, it was as if the Treasury’s best brains had got around a meeting room table with exactly that in mind: the highest taxes since the Second World War, a stepping up on the assault on small business (from which most growth derives) and windfall taxes on energy firms, removing any incentive to produce much needed domestic gas. All this was presented as an unavoidable and necessary antidote to what we’re told was an unwise growth experiment on the part of the ‘libertarian jihadists’, Truss and Kwarteng. We are also told by, among others, Lord Jim O’ Neill (ex-Goldman Sachs) that the “grown-ups are back in the room” and that, infantilised by those that govern us, we can take some comfort in the fact that the markets are reassured and that we have trusted and competent leaders at the helm.
Liz Truss spoke only last month of an “anti-growth coalition” for a reason. The prevailing orthodoxy since the coup is not one of growth regrettably postponed because of the disaster of Trussonomics. It is much more terrifying than that – what we are being subjected to is degrowth. Whether you blame the Blob, the Treasury, the World Economic Forum or the ‘global elite’, the facts point to a disastrous alignment of economic policy with that of the most extreme eco-zealots.
If you’ve not come across the term, ‘degrowth’ is exactly what it sounds like – reducing output in a bid to reduce emissions and hasten our pursuit of Net Zero. If it seems a dumb idea, it’s getting a lot of traction and not just among Marxists like Japanese philosopher Kohei Saito whose degrowth textbook Capital in the Anthropocene has sold half a million copies – and hasn’t even been translated into English yet. Among more establishment figures, Obama’s former Secretary of Energy, Steven Chu, says, “You have to design an economy based on no growth or even shrinking growth.”
As recently pointed out by Julia Horowitz on the CNN website, the European Parliament plans a conference next spring titled “Beyond Growth” – Ursula von Leyen plans to attend. The European Research Council recently allocated some $10 million to three top degrowth scholars to explore practical ‘post-growth’ policies. One of them, Giorgos Kallis of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, says, “An innocent 2% or 3% per year, it’s an enormous amount of growth — cumulative growth, compound growth — over time. I don’t see it being compatible with the physical reality of the planet.” Another of the trio, Jason Hickel says: “More growth means more energy use, and more energy use makes it more difficult to decarbonise the energy system in the short time we have left.”
Many of us saw this coming during the pandemic when ‘behavioural scientists’ on the Government’s SPI-B group included Communist Party member Susan Michie, memorable for her exhortation on Channel 5 last year to observe mask-wearing and social distancing “forever”. She also made the point that some of the virtuous behaviours of lockdowns – such as not commuting to work – should be sustained for the sake of the environment.
Viewing recent events through the lens of the ‘degrowth’ movement should make us all very concerned. Those of a genuinely conservative mindset celebrated Kwasi Kwarteng’s attempt to revive the lost idea of growth. It was necessarily oppositional to the Treasury Orthodoxy and while the timing was arguably unfortunate, the ‘disaster’ was at least in part confected as Truss’s foes moved from one symbol of recklessness to another – at one point it was the dollar/sterling rate; at another it was the politics of removing the 45p tax band; then it became about gilts and the markets’ rampant hostility.
Among the main political parties, there is now a consensus that we should abandon the fossil fuels that have enabled humans to flourish over the last two centuries and return to the woefully inefficient and intermittent technologies of wind and water abandoned by our ancestors. Just as we are being nudged and hectored into following a spurious Net Zero agenda, we are being gaslit into enduring a prolonged recession that is presented as inescapable and caused by external factors outside our control – Covid, Ukraine, climate change. We are increasingly being urged to accept a path of decline and diminished lifestyles. Demand is to be managed down requiring us to do less, be it driving, heating our homes or using the shower. The truth is that we are steadily being pushed down into an impoverished feudal existence by an elite that has been captured by a Marxist consensus of central planning and control.
Ian Price is a Business Psychologist. Find him on Twitter.
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“Take 2 minutes less in the shower”. I recently timed myself at 1 minute 15 seconds (and that included the time to get the water to temperature). Is is possible to have a negative shower?
I got it down to 30s of running water during one particularly extended drought; it meant enduring the initial cold blast and turning the water off as soap and shampoo were applied. By counting how long the water was running I figured that was as little as could be reasonably (AND unreasonably) asked.
I take no lessons from politicians, damn them to blazes.
Easier if you have hard water of course. I don’t know if you could add salt to it or something in soft water areas?
15-20 for me, it’s the only time I get any peace and no distractions.
Minutes?
I wonder if there’s an Usain Bolt of showering out there somewhere? Now there’s something some would pay to watch…
I think they have two minutes to shower (or possibly one minute) in navy submarines. If negative showers were possible, they would surely have done it. Then again, if everyone had strong natural immunity, and good health, showers may not be necessary on submarines.
Oh no I like a good long shower that includes shaving. At least 5 mins think I’ll make it 7 now.
Degrowth – aka destruction of Western civilization and wealth – is indeed government policy, but not just in the UK – it is clearly lockstep across the Western world. NL, with a more or less silent PM Rutte allowing EU-worshipper deputy PM/fin min Kaag take the lead has the exact same policies. While hosing tax money out one end for ‘energy price ceilings’ and other such nonsense, they are raising the already high taxes on energy on the other, telling us to get used to it, crying the price of energy is beyond their control – even though more than half of it is taxes imposed by the Dutch government. They are also trying to reduce the food supply, a common theme throughout the Western world.
These destructive and criminal policies are aimed at the Greta Thunbergs of this world – mental children who think wishing and dreaming constitute realistic government policy. Who believe in simple problems with one cause and one solution. Propaganda works wonders, as we saw with corona.
What I find harder to get my head around is the outright, blatant hypocrisy of the political vermin pushing this garbage – they do not even pretend to live according to the policies they wish to push on us. Kaag wants all transactions over 100 euros to be tracked – even though she has considerable assets hidden in a trust for which she was not registered as the UBO. The European Court has just issued a ruling that UBO registers should be kept secret from the public.
We have all seen them on numerous occasions rock up to ‘climate change’ and ‘green’ events in hundreds of private jets. We see ‘green’ tsar Timmermans, member of the Dutch Labour Party, just get awarded a monthly 1800 euro cost of living payment, which his ‘socialist’ Labour Party approved. He is receiving an additional payment on top of his monthly salary of 26,000 euros that is higher than the monthly minimum wage that his party’s main supporters are paid.
What numbnuts votes for such blatant criminals? I’m actually starting to hate the idiots that vote for these frauds more than the frauds themselves.
It doesn’t matter who you vote for as there is never a real choice of a candidate not in the Frequent Flyer globalist cocktail club. When one or two sometimes get through they speak to empty assemblies and are only heard on hard to find YouTube clips.
The solution, worryingly appears to be violent overthrow.
I paid an £80 restaurant bill with cash last week & was told they required to record some photo ID. I was with a lawyer who told me that the law makes the recipient of cash payments responsible for verifying that the cash was legally obtained, the law has no threshold limit, so the restaurant was technically correct.
I wonder if any other readers have had similar experiences?
Sounds a little odd. I just had a look to see if I could find the legislation. The only thing a quick search came up with was in the context of money laundering. There are certain criteria when a business must make certain checks – e.g. for payments over 10,000 pounds.
Although it’s clear they want to track every payment of any amount, I don’t think such legislation exists yet.
Where was this?
Sounds like an Orwell novel.
Couldn’t agree with you more. “Political vermin” is a perfect descriptor
Personal income tax rates are a lot less now than in the past. In the 1950s to 70s the top two tiers of taxation were 40% and *75%*, more if included investment income. The highest rate has been completely abolished, as far as I’m aware. Tax collected may indeed represent a bigger % of GDP but that’s not the same thing, may be simply a measure of lower gdp. Rich people pay much much much less tax than they used to.
I take the wider point about degrowth but dispute the point about taxes..
Highest tax burden as a % of GDP in 70 years: TaxPayers’ Alliance finds average tax level is highest in 70 years – TaxPayers’ Alliance (taxpayersalliance.com)
I’m not sure what you mean by “may simply be a measure of lower GDP”. If GDP goes down you’d expect tax take as an amount to go down accordingly.
Tax isn’t just income tax. It’s NI, council tax, VAT, inheritance tax, CGT, road tax, TV licence, reductions in tax breaks for pension contributions, mortgage repayment, married couples, changes in tax band thresholds, corporation tax, fuel and alcohol and tobacco and import duties. You can’t simply look at income tax %s – the politicians can manipulate those, and they do, to appear as if they are taxing people less.
Cool, thanks for that. I hadn’t thought about all the other kinds of tax, or at least hadn’t realised how substantial they are.
With ref tax vs gdp ratio; I meant that gdp is not necessarily a measure of income earned, ie may be/is made up of various kinds of “productivity” which need not be a reliable background to assess/compare individual tax rates against.
I don’t understand why tax would go down “accordingly” if gdp goes down. Isn’t the point of the above comparison/argument that tax has risen relative to gdp? I’m just suggesting that gdp need not be a useful value to compare tax against.
But even if middle income people are paying more tax of all kinds, ( as per your list ), rich people are definitely paying a lot lot lot less tax ( as a % of their income ) now than they were in the 60s and 70s.
Yes GDP is imperfect but it’s the best we have.
Sunak and family won’t be paying more tax.
I forgot stamp duty. Probably others.
National Insurance is income tax (i.e. theft).
It depends what you call tax. Even a 40% taxpayer may only take home 30% of any marginal income earnt after:
40% tax
10% NI
10% pension
10% student loan repayment
it is also quite strange how National Insurance continues to be capped at around £75k of income, as it is a tax in all but name. It is somewhat regressive.
Consider yourself nudged (actually given a kicking up the arris by the PsyOps Team).
The real risk at present seems to be the obsession with one theory or another, with which politicians can “do something about”. Whether their belief is justifiable from a human perspective is a moot point.
A quick crawl through the definition(s) of “degrowth” came up with the fact that this is not a novel idea at all. E.g. there was a book called “Small is beautiful” by E.F. Schumacher in the early 1970s. Apparently still available from the usual sources.
It probably wouldn’t be popular with traditional political Parties, you’d have thought!
It could be that the likely outcome of Shapp’s activities is faster “depreciation” of most of our assets – not that depreciation is a term that traders like to use.
I’ve already turned my thermostat down and programmed the central heating to come on for significantly shorter periods. And turned off radiators in rooms were I would prefer them to be on. And opted not to use the electric shower which is very conveniently situated close to my bedroom as opposed to the hot water tank fed shower in the main bathroom on a different floor, and shave using a mug of hot water and wear a fleecy over shirt and a fleece indoors all the time. That’s about as far as I am going to go. If he wants anything else he can go and take a phly1ng phuqu€ at himself.
In fact he can go and take one anyway, And so can the downvoter.
Consider yourself nudged (actually given a kick up the arris by the PsyOps Team).
Well the options are the kick in the arris or the kick in the wallet. I’ve gone for the more affordable option.
The Club of Rome nutters have completed their and their susceptible pupils march through the institutions and are now in charge. I remember my first encounter and lecture on that rubbish in school in the 70s by a Marxist teacher quite well. If he’s still alive, he might remember my Thatcherist response as well.
Some of them are true believers, but many are just in it to enrich themselves and/or to get some power, which they would never be able to obtain in a functioning, sane system (the German Greens are picture perfect examples), and most are useful idiots of those really in power, who don’t really give a fig, but use it and them to cement their power and monopolies, increase their wealth and get rid of pleb disturbance and competition.
The latter also realized that the implosion of the financial system can’t be prevented anymore and are therefore in full ‘fleece’ em’ mode since then.
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2022/11/no_author/covid-is-not-an-epidemiological-story-covid-is-a-crime-story/
The energy price cap isn’t going away either, will we ever see free market forces in play in the energy sector or is a highly regulated price cap system the new normal? Control energy, next they will come for food, then comes the CBDC’s. Before you know it, all of your basic needs will be under the control of the Government – then the social credit scores come into play.
Oh my goodness! Schapps just happens to be photographed again.
with him, Hunt and Sunak involved with economic policy deflation or rather stagflation are inevitable. All because if Brexit.
I don’t give a shit about carbon but rampant consumerism and built in obsolescence are doing little for most, financially and if the earth’s resources are finite, the ponzi scheme has to end eventually.
Ok technological advancements and efficiency improvements are great, but a new coat every season every year “cus fashion” why?
I don’t buy a new coat every year – I wait until my clothes have holes in them before they are replaced. But that’s my choice. I spend my money on other stuff that most likely uses the same resources as a new coat. Perhaps you live very frugally, and if that suits you then good for you. But it doesn’t suit me, or many others. I think if we start legislating for what resources people choose to consume, it’s a slippery slope. But we’re already on that. Anyway, the people driving this DO NOT live frugally, and never will.
Well-said. Even if one is agnostic about carbon and climate change, one can still agree that growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell, which eventually kills its host. And sooner or later, the massive Ponzi scheme of late-stage rentier capitalism will have to end. Working harder and harder for less and less, all so the rich can get even richer and in return maybe throw us more crumbs designed for the dump, is what “GROOOOWWWWWTH!” has devolved into these days. FEH.
Yes the problem is the authoritarian naff policies, hypocrisy, opacity and coercion from the political vermin.. I don’t truly understand economics but can see over-exploiting finite earth’s resources for short-term profit is going on full-swing and bad for the future. I don’t have any answers other than awareness, education and voluntary grass-roots democratic change.
Does anyone else feel like its Germany, Christmas 1932.? Herr Hitler is about to be made Chancellor, declare that democracy is dead and enact his plans. Few realise the full implications. In fact many support him wholeheartedly and genuinely, to bring the revolution that will take Germany to a better place. To begin the demands on the people are simple and patriotic, but as time goes on, they become deeply sinister and painful. Many, I suspect have doubts, but are not willing or able to air them. Their silence is self preservation. Yet the full folly of willingly handing the steering wheel to a plausible madman (or set of mad-men) is yet to be played out. It will take another 10 years, and the ramifications will last two generations, admittedly one less than the formation of the Soviet Union will under Stalin.
I do wonder what I would have done for myself and my children in 1932. Should they be told? Will they believe me.? Should we move elsewhere and where? Can we fight, or is it already too late. Who could come to save us, or are we on our own now. What would I have done.? What would I have done..?
The level of compliance of so many people under the lockdown débacle did remind me of 1930s Germany, as a demonstration of how vulnerable many of them are, and what can emerge later on.
The financial crisis (of which the current shambles is a function and continuation) was also likely to cause serious human rights abuses, possibly including large scale war.
I suspect the best chance of a realistic resistance lies in sedition from the so-called United States, though whether that is likely I don’t know. President De Santis might suffice of course.
Indeed. They thought they were free….
People do not have to accept this.
There are many of us and few of them. They can do nothing if we remove our consent and refuse to comply.
Too many are sold on the joint bogus concepts of social justice and climate change. By the time they realise they’ve been had, it will be far too late to go back.
I think you are exactly right. My impression from talking to young people is that they are entirely signed up for the Schwab-future package, tracking their carbon footprints on their phones, comparing social credit scores against their friends. They think it’s going to be great.
Hardly news that the Not The Conservative party (and so-called opposition) are parties of impoverishment. I remember at a Labour party hustings once a former coal miner complaining about what Labour had helped do to the industry.
Incidentally, I read years ago that having the thermostat at no more than 17 or 18 degrees celcius in Winter (circa 64 degrees) is healthier. Something to do with triggering immune systems, I think. A lot of nonsense this aversion to wearing jumpers indoors IMO.
Speaking of government policy, what exactly is “sexual orientation”?
If anyone’s unsure what’s going on, read Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged. Written in the 1957 it’s pretty much a prophecy.
Us vs The Looters.
The public are an inconvenience to governments of both party’s. We are just their day job. There true vocation is the globalist agenda that seeks to control the worlds wealth and resources, and uses climate policy to achieve that. The politicians that are supposed to represent us actually ignore us and pander to the pretend to save the planet people instead.
This policy direction is another very important reason not to have ‘smart’ technology installed in the home.
And is it just me or does anyone else get an uneasy feeling whenever they see a picture of Grant Shapps?
Agenda 2030 is all about levelling-down affluent, industrialised western nations. It is being done through various means: shovelling taxpayers’ money into the 3rd world and at the same time wrecking their economies.
Eventually, we will all own nothing. Apart from the Global “Elite.” They will own (and control) everything and everyone.
Welcome to Animal Farm.
The last chapter of Nineteen Eighty-Four talking about New Speak refers to things in the past tense, showing that in time the evil order will collapse… The tighter they grip, the more we’ll slip through their fingers!!
Indeed. I swear, “equity” is probably the most heavily abused word in the entire Newspeak language.
Indeed, leveling down is precisely what they want to do. Because heaven forbid they level up, right? They truly have a scarcity mindset.
Reminds me of the response to the Make Poverty History campaign years ago. “No, we need to make WEALTH history, because the Earth cannot afford our lifestyle!” the zealots said. All while not seeing the irony in that by definition only a privileged person could possibly respond like that. The counter-response to that should be, “You first, buddy!”
Basically government policy in the West is everything Greta Looney-Thunberg ranted about in the UN. Growth? How dare you! F*** off and get back in your straitjacket, you deranged commie doom goblin!!
I stick to my view that the resurgent anti-growth technocracy is living Napoleon’s 100 days: they’re finished. Give people a couple of cold winters, reduced to burning furniture to stay warm and there’ll be be blood on the streets.
The UN, the technocratic governments of the West, the investment banks, they Hollywood virtue-signalling mafia, the EU… they’re all going to collapse sooner or later. It all boils down to how much damage they do in the time it takes them to die.
Whether it be the Atlas Shrugged route or the Fight Club route, people are going to turn their backs on the elitists. The appointment of Jeremy Hunt and the coronation of Rishi Sunak represented the straw breaking the camel’s back. What people need convincing of is that voting Labour is even worse than voting Tory: that voting Tory is committing suicide and voting Labour is asking to be murdered. The entire establishment is doomed so we need to help it collapse.
For me, I’m a freelancer with elderly parents to look after: I’m working as much as I need in order for us to live and supply myself with books. I’m no longer attempting to grow my business, because I refuse to contribute more than legally required to a country that hates me and wants to destroy me.
Who is John Galt?
Who is John Galt?
Answer: A delusional sociopath, just like his creator, lol.
Says someone who clearly has never read Ayn Rand!
I can’t turn my thermostat down 2 degrees because I HAVEN’T BL**DY WELL TURNED IT ON YET!
While I agree that the agenda of the elites is quite dark indeed, I should still note that only a fool or an economist (same difference) could believe that infinite growth on a finite planet is somehow possible or even desirable. As Edward Abbey famously said, “growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell”, which eventually kills its host. And at least in the Global North, GDP has been absolutely decoupled from wellbeing long ago (while ironically still not absolutely decoupled from material throughput). Food for thought.