Tony Blair: Tax Wealth Not Work
We'll get to this important policy later, it will fund our future, but first, let's talk about Tony. This is about grabbing headlines and burying your message inside.
Just as Nature magazine issues news that global support for climate change is overwhelmingly in favour of action - 86% believe in taking action - Tony does a feint towards Carbon Capture.
Tony Blair could have focussed on a policy that united the UK to reject it's battle with populism, and the greenlash, instead - he' decided to promote policies that promote extraction of wealth from the people of this country - whilst skewering the thought out policies of the current government.
His own party. Oh the hubris.
I am The Solution
No one person has the solution. Certainly not Tony and his think tank researchers that have researched his paper.
That's a delusional myth that invests technocrats with the power to save us. An unhelpful myth.
He's got "blood on his hands". But instead of falling back into obscurity, riding out whatever legacy he had. Someone must have invited him to a love in with nuclear energy and tech bro's carbon capture.
Is Tony's hand prints on this?
Tony Blair is an unusual creature. He unites both the left and the right of the political spectrum. Against him. And the rose tinted view that propelled him as an alternative appears not to have have faded, in his own eyes. But like other blow hards with big ideas. Other Emperors. He's standing naked.
Tony Blair: Unwelcome Intervention
Couched in the valid observations about policies not working, the strategic, geopolitical, map waving hands statesman errors mark him out as an egoist of the highest order.
Our publication is not political.
So we'll talk about the truths of UK policy changes that are required, having talked to grass roots voices. Actual builders, homeowners, engineers and community groups. Rather than policy makers, politicians and C-suite execs pushing policy ideas.
Tony and his crowd is actively obfuscating, misting over - the reality of what the UK population wants and needs.
Most people want more climate action.
Damian Carrington
But the dissatisfaction with terms like Net Zero, and the cost of achieving those targets is being coalesced into a discussion that we don't need to have.
Carbon Capture Is Tech Absolution
It is not a good idea to seek a solution from unproven expensive technology that cannot be conducted at scale and take public money way from our strained economy.
We know our homes leak. We can fix that.
We know our cars stink and burn fossils, we can fix that (we are at pace).
But making these transitions affordable is about making the cost of adoption cheaper, not raising lances in Quixotic charge towards futuristic solutions we cannot and do not need. Not from tech anyway.
Trusting tech bro's who have chainsawed our children's minds and influenced elections and genocides, is by default a wrong move.
Just process, and safely examining the solutions we've got in our back pockets - the legal process, the farming community, engineering science - are far better bedrocks to build our carbon free future on.
Planning Is Crucial
We can work our way out of our current problems by absorbing the lessons of the past, and listening to our workers. Heat pumps are working and being adopted at scale. Installers need more support and consumers need more guidance, but we are getting there, it's in the numbers.
But planning regulations in the UK, which once might have saved us from bad housing extensions and failed solutions to building at speed, are falling short. That needs urgent attention. Not just for new energy in the form of DNO hold ups and novel solutions, but because setting standards for reform, allows us to get started taking action.
Action Come From The Bottom
With no cash, but enthusiasm. Neighbourhood led solutions to carbon saving retrofit work. People won't shy away from solutions that offer them healthier living they can experience now, when it's communicated to them in an effective way.
They just need either the idea that they can afford it, it will give their kids payback or the idea that government will support them. So the idea of investing pots of cash in science solutions we don't need for cronies. Or slowing down our split away from foreign fossil fuel sources is awful.
Tax The Rich(est)
Tony Blair is an anachronism. A look back, not a look forward. Policies he's promoting (apart from chapter 4) ignore the good work that both previous political parties have done in favour of ill proven, impractical and illogical solutions.
They encourage capital expenditure on geo political objectives that belie Tony's aspirations.
We have an asset class in this country, beholden to us as people, citizens - because they own assets which are here. They are the super rich. The oligarchies.
They own. Houses. Land. And businesses. They cannot fly those assets out to tax havens. They can be taxed fairly for what they own in this country.
We won't experience 'capital flight'. This fair and just land is a safe haven. We are awesome.
That is a fair revenue stream for the bio materials development funding, (We'll coin it as the BMDF - lets say the BuMDuFF)
So lets focus on the practical experience of the here an now - and the fact that the UK is no longer a super power.
We don't have an empire, but we do have (some) influence and we can be a good global citizen.
Here's a route map with ideas. Not a solution, just a plan, which, like anyone knows who's been in politics/conflict/the PTA won't survive contact with reality unless it's based on an outcome.
The Future For The UK - As A Global Thought Leader
Taking carbon out of the atmosphere, at pace and scale can be done, already with a crop we have written about in this magazine numerous times. It is a triple winning crop. It creates jobs, agricultural reforms and material developments.
Reducing energy demands also, can be done at scale. Insulation, in homes, efficiency in energy management, and reduction in consumption is possible it's just expedient for Tony and his cronies to say otherwise.
Bio materials reduce our exposure to oil and other energy resources. This is contrary to growth in many peoples eyes. But it is not true. Bio materials do feature in Tony's manifesto. But they should be at the top, if only he could stop thinking he is a globalist. POCA. Is the problem. Make that disappear, and we can do hemp.
Reducing our consumption is not a backward cave dwelling regression.
Can you see how odd it is, that spending your weeks toiling to then jetting away for a break in nature/beach/mountains is a contradiction. Soooo. Work less for more and do nature.
Reduce the load on working families. Give them healthy homes first. Then fair wages, not gig economy work. Encourage that work to be in the regenerative and retrofit rather consumptive industries. We're short of 250,00 builders and energy assessors.
Promote education for the future , not factories, with large scale investment in bio tech, bio engineering and renewable tech career streams rather than service based roles which face extinction from AI.
Invest in or agricultural bedrock. Stop land being using as an investment strategy but as a national asset. Farmers make us, and our land.
And. You know. Fine/tax people who are shitting in our rivers.
Everything that we could be doing, is bio based, enhanced by tech, AI even.
Bold Moves Doesn't Mean Being Aggressive
We should stop being afraid. Leaving a coercive relationship. You need time to recover, then value your self worth, then grow and flourish.
Tony Blair sat under the US hegenomy. He was bullied, in thrall. He's repeating that mistake. He's probably still traumatised.
Give him a hug.
But let's move on. Tax the rich(est). Invest the money where it works. Neighbourhoods. The ones that you and me live in in.
They don't have gates.
They have doors that open.
We just need to knock. And say hello.
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