Starring Pete Kegsbreath and Cask Botel

Just to keep my complaint correct and ideally consistent with others as quite specific info is asked for:
Breakfast (TV news)
Aired 20/04/26
About 6 minutes into the programme
Henry Zeffman reporting (not his fault)
Complaint: political bias

About right?

This. Wells & refineries aren’t like light switches to be turned on/off at a moment’s notice.
Oil companies will want a period of peace before they fire up wells again. A few filled tankers might make the journey during a ceasefire, but need more certainty than currently the case for full flows

I mean this in good faith, but what’s the difference between capping profits and agreeing CFDs for projects such as Hinkley and Hornsea Offshore?

(Granted, people might not like cfds and especially the strike prices the gov negotiates)

The first casualties of war are the business class commuters - Aurelius

Jk, Tom 🙈

Gulf oil, gas exporters grapple with losses from closed Strait Extensive damage from the Iran war, estimated at over $25 billion, underscores the current dependence on the Strait of Hormuz and the need for alternate transport solutions.

“Iraq, Qatar, Kuwait, and Bahrain face near-total export shutdowns, suffering major revenue losses and infrastructure damage estimated at over $25 billion.”

Over 60% of Iraq’s GDP is from oil exports.

www.ogj.com/general-inte...

Policeman 1: I reckon I could have slept with her, if it wasn't for something I said. But we had a row and, uh... I said something about the Pope. Policeman 2: That's a bit stupid, you know she's Catholic. Policeman 1: Yeah, I know she's Catholic, but I didn't know the Pope was.

The Young Ones, 1982

Rory, new policy proposal just dropped - it’s either flood the market with oil we don’t have, or nationalise NS oil and somehow extract it cheaply and presumably not tax it at 80%…or get slightly more tax from new production.
Farage just talking ‘common sense’

Late to this.

I’ve always considered Vance a bit of an armchair expert. Amirite

Daily Mail poll: should Britain rejoin the EU? Most answered ‘yes’

Daily Mail readers poll is either surprising or has been hijacked

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article...

I also haven’t seen a single energy industry expert interviewed, explaining why increased NS O&G extraction will not help much wrt energy prices.
As someone who works in the industry I find the entire debate tedious and facile, especially for something which could be largely explained in 5 mins.

…the other hand, it does sound like ‘common sense’ to “just extract more from our Venezuelan-sized oil reserves” and ‘technically’ prices could come down due to increased NS taxes subsiding consumers.

He was a commodities trader and (pretends he?) doesn’t understand the basics of the oil market? Ok

…near enough reserves to shift prices), 2) set up a national oil company to ring fence NS oil and sell exclusively to the UK gov at discounted prices (never going to happen. Very expensive to set up or buy an existing oil, would take years to establish itself, and the tax base would be shot)
On…

…income and jobs.
There’s no significant correlation between NS oil production and UK energy prices
Our NS region is 90% dead so there isn’t a great deal left to economically extract.
For NS oil to give us cheap energy we would have to either 1) flood the market to drive prices down (nowhere…

…and is sold on the international market at market prices.
Except for strategic reserves & other non-daily uses, the UK gov does not buy North Sea oil.
UK refineries are generally not designed to refine the grades of oil in the UK’s North Sea sector.
Increased extraction only leads to more tax…

What exactly does he mean by ‘producing our own O&G’?
We (the gov) don’t produce anything as we don’t have a national oil company.
We give out licences to explore, extract etc to private companies, and have done since the ‘80s.
We tax extracted oil to the tune of 80%
That oil is privately owned…

I think Vance used to have a different Twitter handle

Hungary election live: Viktor Orbán concedes defeat in Hungarian election after 16 years in power Long-serving prime minister beaten by opposition after early results showed clear lead

Orban concedes defeat. The support of Trump, Vance, Putin, Lavrov, Weidel, Milei, Le Pen, Fico, Babis and many others could not overcome Hungarian anger at a stagnant, corrupt regime

www.theguardian.com/world/live/2...

David Brent, job appraisal with Keith

What were the options again?

May also say something about opinions on Trump/Vance. Right wing populists across Europe must be scrambling to distance itself from the US admin, you’d think.

I’m quite sure you’re right, but the transition to renewable energy is (or should be) long term strategy.
What people like Tice are talking about now is policy over, say, the next decade which he’s kind of pitching as a solution to an immediate, current price shock - and it’s silly.

Ah, I didn’t know it was 65 years since his journey into space.
It’s astonishing to think what was achieved when we consider the technology people had then compared to what we have now.

I think everybody’s still surprised that the negotiations weren’t successful, given Trump sent the uber-competent Vance, Kushner, and Witkoff.

Maybe they just need to read The Art of the Deal

Thereby stopping the few ships Iran currently allows passage to, and burning the idea of Iran setting up a toll system.

I’m quite sure the US’s gulf allies are going to just love him for adding this additional barrier to oil flows.

I’m sure Iran does want money, but do you suspect that its ultimate goal - especially among the more religiously inclined - is to humiliate the US, to show the world that iran can defeat the US, albeit in a limited sense and by enduring massive destruction?

“This war confirmed…the folly of focusing on how much the enemy is being hurt rather than on whether political objectives are close to being met.” - excellent distillation of the US’s approach.
Perhaps the most pressing objective being the strait, indirectly caused by said damage delivered on Iran.

“This war confirmed…the folly of focusing on how much the enemy is being hurt rather than on whether political objectives are close to being met.”
I’m not sure Trump & Hegseth- a rank amateur steeped in the illusion that he has a divine right to bring Iran to heel - are capable of understanding this

Hungary's election on Sunday may well be the most important European vote this year. @ecfr.eu's New Politics Project is following it closely.

ecfr.eu/npp

Picture of the century. 😍

📷 credit: Science Tube

Excellent pieces. The depth, breadth of you and your dad’s knowledge & ability to put it in to a clear, relevant-to-today analysis is invariably impressive.
It’d be interesting if you could somehow insert a ‘what I/we read this month’ section, w/paragraph length reviews.
Not Rubio over Vance in 28?