Comment on Ex-Tory Home Secretary Braverman defects to Reform UK
mjr@infosec.pub 2 weeks agoSo many to choose from! How about building more gas turbine power stations (thereby increasing demand for gas, pushing the global price up and benefitting Gazprom even if they don’t buy directly from them), cutting stamp duty on the biggest properties (including most of those bought by Russian oligarchs) and pulling out of the European Defence Fund? All straight from the last Reform manifesto and I’d bet Putin would be in favour of those, wouldn’t you?
If you don’t like those, there’s stuff like cancelling our human rights, repealing the Equalities Act and “scrapping” the BBC.
I suspect Reform would also open the floodgates to more Russian government funding, Nathan Gill style and otherwise, but they’re not daft enough to put that in their manifesto.
Maybe you should ask which Reform policies would Putin oppose? There’s some he probably wouldn’t care about either way, but oppose?
makingrain@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
We’re using gas for the next 50 years whether it’s Reform or the Greens. That curries more favour with the US or Qatar than it does Russia. You’re reaching for that to be a “Putin policy”
Scrapping the licence fee… that 1/2 of the population who should pay, don’t.
Thanks for responding at least.
What would Putin oppose? Let’s see… the top three from Reform’s site:
ohulancutash@feddit.uk 2 weeks ago
Russia was the biggest gas exporter until the 2022 sanctions. It is still heavily dependent on black and grey market exports.
makingrain@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Read what I said again: we’ll be using gas in 50 years.
Your cherry picked statistics for a windy day at 22:30 are a poor example. Check again at 17:00.
Maybe have a think about the majority of homes central heating.
While you’re at it: go learn about how fertiliser is made using natural gas (we import all our fertiliser now anyway, thanks Ed!)
mjr@infosec.pub 2 weeks ago
We’ll have to wait 50 years to know, but even if we are, it’ll be much much less under any sane government, but it would be more if left to Reform.
It’s absurd to accuse someone of cherry-picking and then cherry-pick a time when the National Energy System Operator has invited bids for the Demand Flexibility Service because the price of gas-generated electricity is too high.
A majority, but not a supermajority. Only about 60% of UK homes burn gas for heating despite all the encouragement and inducement since the 1970s in a scandal that makes promotion of diesel cars look like playschool stuff, and a farcical and pathetic target-missing attempt to encourage heat pumps in the last 10 years (target: 600,000 heat pumps per year by 2028, latest number I’ve seen: 91,000 per year and no, that’s not missing a digit).
So? Buying gas and thereby driving the market price up is enough to benefit Russia. When you hear a gas boiler roar, it’s helping fund Putin.
mjr@infosec.pub 2 weeks ago
I listed three. You might like to pretend they’re not policies or something, but Reform put them in their manifesto.
Really? Are you seriously claiming that Putin doesn’t want the UK buying gas for longer? As that’s the difference between Reform and the others: Reform would build more new gas power stations, prolonging the dependency mistake, while most of the other parties will phase it out more or less quickly.
Not only, but also scrapping the BBC because they believe on-demand TV has replaced it. That’s what they wrote.
And I notice you don’t disagree that Putin would want the UK out of the European Defence Fund.
Don’t make me laugh! Why would Putin oppose those? Putin would love all of them, along with anything else that makes the UK more isolated and causes squabbles with its neighbours or diverts funds from NATO-level defence to petty little border patrols. That’s why he’s paid Reform politicians like Nathan Gill so much.
makingrain@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Which three? Which three are Putin policies? I’m not addressing the rest of your response until you name which three Reform policies are Putin policies which got us to where we are.
mjr@infosec.pub 2 weeks ago
You’re just showboating because we’ve had nine Putin-friendly Reform UK policies so far: