Netherlands just announced a new 120% wealth tax It will apply to the ultra-rich who earn above €150k per year So if you make €200k, you pay €60k on the €50k above the threshold Dutch officials explained it is to "discourage wealth hoarding behaviour" So beautifuly said Finally someone in Europe has the moral spine to put an end this selfish accumulation of wealth No human being should make over €150k a year It is a vulgar and borderline pornographic amount I hope more EU countries will adopt this progressive legislation This is why Europe is, and always will be, light years ahead of America

I’ve been calling for VAT to come off energy bills for a while now, nice in a way, to be joined by Reform and the Tories…..it makes no sense to add a luxury tax to an essential that millions of people struggle to pay for - while airline tickets are VAT free. We should stick the 5% energy bill VAT on flying, it would be a small step to rebalancing our tax system.

My family installed 5KW of solar panels for our farm 4 years ago with EU subsidies and a personal investment. We live in a temperate area with pretty cold and cloudy winters. The investment has already been paid for and we are net contributors to the grid now. Anyone saying renewables don't work or are not cost effective is either a complete idiot or has a financial interest in sticking to fossil fuels.

The UK gets ~900–1,200 kWh/m²/year of solar irradiance, similar to Germany, which is a global solar leader. Germany has installed far more solar per person than the UK, despite very similar weather. I ran my whole house and EV yesterday in solar and I’m in the north of Scotland

The cost of the clean energy transition is less than the entire cost of the last fossil fuel crisis. A further reminder that politicians on the right who want to abandon our drive for clean power want to saddle our country with huge costs and risks. theguardian.com/environment/…

Earlier this week I pointed out that Y11 Sports, owners of Ospreys and Cardiff, is owned since 2023 by Navis Investment Partners of Kuala Lumpur. x.com/JacotheNorth/status/20… Last year @WelshRugbyUnion negotiated a £55-60 million 'refinancing package' with Goldman Sachs and HSBC that enabled it to pay of the @WelshGovernment debt. This was finalised this month. Further digging tells us that HSBC is a 'debt provider' to some of Navis' portfolio companies, including Y11 Sports. Given that both Y11 Sports and WRU are now indebted to HSBC, who's really driving the discussions on the future of Welsh rugby?

If you think gas power is cheap, meet Keadby 2, the last CCGT gas plant built in Great Britain It opened in 2023, after 5yrs of development, at a cost of £350m Owner SSE says it would now cost 3.5x to build the same plant (~£1.2bn) 1/6

Did I just lose a year of my life (Eastenders)

Grid bottlenecks aren’t a failure of the energy transition — they’re proof it’s working. Renewables got cheap fast, and now the grid has to catch up. Time to build the wires for the clean energy system we already have.

UK electricity prices outpace EU15 averages due to heavy reliance on gas for marginal pricing—97% of hours versus far less in nuclear-heavy France or hydro-rich Scandinavia—exposing bills to global gas swings. UK-specific costs, like renewable subsidies and network charges, inflate household rates by 20-30% above peers. EU nations often mitigate via diversified mixes and targeted interventions, balancing affordability without UK's aggressive net-zero premiums.

Cutting carbon taxes isn’t a solution,it’s a short-term accounting trick that leaves a broken system in place. The costs we avoid now will multiply for the next generation, who’ll face an even more expensive and unstable climate future to fix. The science around climate change has not changed, only the politics has. Decades of research make it clear: reducing emissions rapidly is the only way to limit catastrophic warming. Ignoring that doesn’t make the problem cheaper, it just makes it worse. Scrapping Net Zero because it “costs too much” is like scrapping healthcare because it’s expensive. Both are essential investments in our collective future, not optional luxuries. The real issue isn’t the price of climate action, it’s the profit motive that’s been allowed to dominate essential resources. Energy is a public necessity, not a private cash machine. Corporate profits, particularly those of fossil fuel giants, continue to rise while ordinary people pay the price. The @Conservatives and @reformparty_uk, backed by Big Oil donors, are once again putting short-term political gain ahead of long-term national interest. What Coutinho is really offering isn’t a plan, it’s a pause button that will only deepen the crisis and increase costs down the line. We should be accelerating the drive to Net Zero, and beyond, by reinvesting in clean, nationalized energy systems built for the public good, not private shareholders.

FACTCHECK: The frontpage of today's Daily Telegraph has a very confused story about offshore wind, which is all sorts of wrong It says a technical change means higher subsidies & fewer new windfarms from the upcoming AR7 auction Oopsie! This is the opposite of the truth 🧵

Academic research, including meta-analyses from Berkeley and Oxford, concludes clean energy creates 3-5 times more jobs per GWh than natural gas—averaging 0.65 jobs/GWh for renewables versus 0.12 for gas—primarily due to labor-intensive manufacturing and installation phases. Natural gas excels in lower ongoing O&M requirements, yielding fewer but more sustained roles. Lifetime assessments vary by technology maturity, but renewables consistently show higher overall employment intensity per energy unit delivered.

Has anyone invested in solar panels, battery storage and/or a heat pump & seen their energy bills go up? No? Now scale that up nationally & then globally! Let’s stop the false narrative that renewables investment = damage to the economy. The clue is in the word ‘investment’.

Brian Cox bang on as per re Nigel Farage The working class majority who fell for Brexit are still falling for his BS now. Same people paying the price for that mistake will suffer most under Reform, benefit cuts etc etc.. Why can’t they see what’s happening 🤯 #BBCLauraK

Congress did its homework on Nigel Farage:

Now more than ever, we’d really appreciate your support. We’re talking to bus & train companies about getting fans from Swansea to Bridgend & back. And we’re setting up park & rides. So transport should be easy. Let’s show everyone how important the Ospreys are to you. 👊🏻👊🏻👊🏻

1. The missing millions. The WRU claims it now only has £7.8m available to fund TWO teams. To lose just shy of £10m in 3 months is ‘seismic carelessness’ not a ‘seismic change’ We need audited and a comprehensive analysis of the actual WRU’s financial situation! Transparency.

Nick,any idea if left handed batsman Ul Hassan can also bowl left armed (as that bit of rough from the bowlers marks might be useful) @nickwebb2017

So with VdG seemingly injured, which bowler would you play in our next game? I’d give Douthwaite a game (also boosting the batting lineup) @nickwebb2017