You couldn't afford £2k a month mortgage payments on MP salary of £86584 AND a ministerial salary of £31680?
£117k puts you in the top 3% of income in this country, and over £6k per month income after tax. Forgive me for having little sympathy, given the number of households having to pay more than half their take home pay in rent.
Christ, try trying to live on a (high) academic salary of about £75k a year. Most of my brilliant academic colleagues (who are much smarter than the average Tory cabinet minister) get paid about a third less, after years and years of work to get PhDs and permanent posts. Your government has driven research, science and innovation in this country into the ground. The academic workforce is exhausted, demoralised and really pissed off. Brexit has been an unmitigated disaster and made everything in our sector worse. The whole country is falling to bits. We are utterly sick of your nonsense (and you are billed as one of the 'sensible' Tories). Good riddance.
Seriously? I earn about £10k less than your £120k. I paid about £3k a month off my mortgage until I paid it off last year, and manage to save something, and pay into my pension, and fund 2 kids through uni. Your money management must be appalling. Maybe cancel Netflix and stop the avocado on toast for breakfast George?
"And because my mortgage rises this month from £800pcm to £2000, which I simply couldn’t afford to pay on a Ministerial salary. That’s political economy 2.0."
You expect the majority of Civil Servants to live on £24,000 a year.
Boo hoo, let me get the world’s smallest violin out.
Your rancid party have siphoned off billions of pounds that should have been used for the benefit of the citizens of this country and you dare loan about a massive salary when you expect most people to live on less and less! Get in the bin you absolute waste of space. And take the whole rotten Tory bunch with you. Despicable creature.
One more observation made with respect for what might be unintended…
You use the phrase “global warming” not “climate change” (or anything stronger)
Global warming suggests that temperature change is our concern. This in itself isn't the most severe effect of changing climate. Changes to precipitation patterns and sea level are likely to have much greater human impact than the higher temperatures alone. The broader impact on the planetary boundaries (including biodiversity loss, ocean acidification etc) For this reason, scientific research on climate change encompasses far more than surface temperature change. So "global climate change" is the more scientifically accurate term. Like the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, I think it’s important to emphasise global climate change and not global warming.
Biotech = jabs leading to "excess deaths" AKA murder.
Cleantech = a solution to the lie of global warming or climate change as it has been rebranded ( the climate models have zero predictive value ). This will be shown to all as we enter the Modern Minimum.
Agritech = more genetic meddling without any idea of the long term consequences.
Meanwhile you ban lots of useful innovation, like the ban on autonomous drones brought in with the EU drone regulations AFTER we had voted to leave the EU. How much has that cost this country? Millions? Billions?
Lets be blunt, we don't have a government, we have a bunch of economic terrorists that are destroying the country with over regulation, over taxation and money printing like this is Weimar Germany. What is worse is that the entire political class is all the same, with the lone exception of Andrew Bridgen. There is no political solution. People are waking up. and there is nothing that can stop it no matter how much you try to cover up your crimes by calling the evidence "disinformation".
Ah. One of the problems is that money dictates everything. The first question asked is, 'can we afford this?' It should be 'what do we need to do?' Otherwise we will keep doing science (and everything else) on the cheap. It is a mistake to let beancounters like the current PM and the Treasury dictate policy and strategy.
Did it ever occur to you that as an MP, this is a problem you ought to have been engaged in solving?
If there's evidence on the public record that you have been in any way concerned with our economic malaise - let alone active in addressing it - I haven't been able to find it.
Your constituents look to you to represent their interests. They have very little time for making Britain a unicorn-tech giant when their stagnant wages mean they had more buying power in the year 2000 than they have today, in spite of 24 years of striving, sacrifices and degrading loyalty to the corporate hellscape.
Without an equitable, functioning economy, everything else is utterly irrelevant. Look at Maslow's hierarchy of needs. A majority of people in the UK cannot meet their basic needs. And you don't seem to care enough to even pretend that is important to you.
Shall we look at the NHS next? Or the out-of-control immigration? Or the sorry state of the education system? Or the police who clearly operate according to an agenda that is irrelevant to 99% of the people in this country? Or the other key issues, none are which are concerns about whether we can make the UK a world leader in generating eco-friendly energy from unicorn flatulence?
My heart bleeds, George. It really does.
PS Since March 2020, I've been paying more than £2k a month on my mortgage, because as soon as your band of clowns shutdown the economy, it was obvious that what is happening now was going to happen, so I wanted to get as much of it paid off as I could before the reckoning came.
You’ll be missed in the corridors of power but I rather fear that those that succeed you are going in the wrong direction. The word polycrisis has become somewhat ubiquitous but it hints at the enormity and complexity of the global and climate related challenges we face. I fear we no longer have the leadership to address these challenges, but we must. The short term quest for political popularity can lead to decisions that are diametrically opposed to the more responsible, more sustainable commitments that we should making.
George, in response to your request for feedback - I loved it! You left us all with an enormous cliffhanger...
You’re choice of talking about Albert Einstein was interesting. Why him? You could have chosen so many others, Bohr, Boltzmann, Heisenberg or my personal hero Richard Feynman. But what singles Einstein out was his ability to capture the imagination of the whole world. Partly his physics, partly his appearance but mainly his ability to communicate.
I so hope that you continue this George, because now that we don’t have Tomorrow’s World on TV we need great communicators to divert attention from the dross that exists elsewhere in political debate to this existential mission.
I wonder based on Einsteins view of insanity what we need to change. Do our stories need to change to consider our inward journey & challenge rather than an outside evil when we meet a challenge ? How could we learn from the ancients ? Is it OK to stream questions , might these questions hold the answers ? Are we reaching a new enlightenment where we operate in the sweet spot of our ikigai ? Can we operate outside the bounds of the provable head and go with the gut. Can a collective feeling be enough ? Is participation enough to change behavior ? How can we optimise for Charles greens trust equation ? Can we pivot on a single word to a better path of exploration ? If patents come from accidental mistakes can we create haphazard experimentation in a safe virtual world ?
Well done George - one of the reasonable Tories - I have grabbed the opportunity to join you since I do believe that the UK needs "concensus Govt" adversarial where the opposite party deliberately undoes even the good that the previous Govt did cannot be good for the people.
I have also attempted many times to gain your interest in two issues Our New Hydrogen Concept and also that Breakthroughs do not come from companies which have loads of cash to lobby parliament -- what is the point of Innovate UK "Funding Competitions with a set Criteria" it clearly disenfranchises "new innovation in any field" "Need a Call which is Open to True innovation TRL1 to TRL 3 " Ideation to a concept on paper - funding technology above that level is close to being Corporate Welfare - the difficulty we have is that existing "Competitions " takes up so much time and does not help the new innovation - having a criteria for Hydrogen actually blocks true innovation -as I can testify - by the time new innovation reaches funding and start on initial modelling the Chinese have a prototype .
There is I feel a need for a "Innovation Road show type structure - No I do not mean a TV show - but involve Universities and local business to uncover new innovation which is stuck in death valley -
I have a recent email from DfT Office for Zero Emissions Vehicles -- "the direction for Hydrogen has been decided -we cannot fund a disruptor since we have funding has been allocated and businesses have made investments "--- my take on a one page email.
Office for Zero Emissions Vehicles should have been all over new hydrogen innovation with potential to produce its own fuel --which would be onboard the EV -- Grid Free Zero emissions House -
e-aircraft etc.
Totally agree - Global Heating and its cause has to be removed from politicians with links to the Fossil Fuels industry -- anyone holding shares or receiving funding or any financial assistance = Vested interest -
All the best with this venture George - the UK -- EU and the World needs to be on the same track.
You couldn't afford £2k a month mortgage payments on MP salary of £86584 AND a ministerial salary of £31680?
£117k puts you in the top 3% of income in this country, and over £6k per month income after tax. Forgive me for having little sympathy, given the number of households having to pay more than half their take home pay in rent.
Christ, try trying to live on a (high) academic salary of about £75k a year. Most of my brilliant academic colleagues (who are much smarter than the average Tory cabinet minister) get paid about a third less, after years and years of work to get PhDs and permanent posts. Your government has driven research, science and innovation in this country into the ground. The academic workforce is exhausted, demoralised and really pissed off. Brexit has been an unmitigated disaster and made everything in our sector worse. The whole country is falling to bits. We are utterly sick of your nonsense (and you are billed as one of the 'sensible' Tories). Good riddance.
Seriously? I earn about £10k less than your £120k. I paid about £3k a month off my mortgage until I paid it off last year, and manage to save something, and pay into my pension, and fund 2 kids through uni. Your money management must be appalling. Maybe cancel Netflix and stop the avocado on toast for breakfast George?
"And because my mortgage rises this month from £800pcm to £2000, which I simply couldn’t afford to pay on a Ministerial salary. That’s political economy 2.0."
Well, it's clearly not Maths 101.
You expect the majority of Civil Servants to live on £24,000 a year.
Boo hoo, let me get the world’s smallest violin out.
Your rancid party have siphoned off billions of pounds that should have been used for the benefit of the citizens of this country and you dare loan about a massive salary when you expect most people to live on less and less! Get in the bin you absolute waste of space. And take the whole rotten Tory bunch with you. Despicable creature.
6K per month take home and you can t afford 2k mortgage.
You get no sympathy whatsoever, but I think that's just an excuse ..
One more observation made with respect for what might be unintended…
You use the phrase “global warming” not “climate change” (or anything stronger)
Global warming suggests that temperature change is our concern. This in itself isn't the most severe effect of changing climate. Changes to precipitation patterns and sea level are likely to have much greater human impact than the higher temperatures alone. The broader impact on the planetary boundaries (including biodiversity loss, ocean acidification etc) For this reason, scientific research on climate change encompasses far more than surface temperature change. So "global climate change" is the more scientifically accurate term. Like the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, I think it’s important to emphasise global climate change and not global warming.
See: https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/global-warming/
And:
https://gpm.nasa.gov/education/articles/whats-name-global-warming-vs-climate-change
George, you have made a point about this government that many of us everyday folk have been making for a while. It’s quite simply, unaffordable.
Biotech = jabs leading to "excess deaths" AKA murder.
Cleantech = a solution to the lie of global warming or climate change as it has been rebranded ( the climate models have zero predictive value ). This will be shown to all as we enter the Modern Minimum.
Agritech = more genetic meddling without any idea of the long term consequences.
Meanwhile you ban lots of useful innovation, like the ban on autonomous drones brought in with the EU drone regulations AFTER we had voted to leave the EU. How much has that cost this country? Millions? Billions?
Lets be blunt, we don't have a government, we have a bunch of economic terrorists that are destroying the country with over regulation, over taxation and money printing like this is Weimar Germany. What is worse is that the entire political class is all the same, with the lone exception of Andrew Bridgen. There is no political solution. People are waking up. and there is nothing that can stop it no matter how much you try to cover up your crimes by calling the evidence "disinformation".
Ah. One of the problems is that money dictates everything. The first question asked is, 'can we afford this?' It should be 'what do we need to do?' Otherwise we will keep doing science (and everything else) on the cheap. It is a mistake to let beancounters like the current PM and the Treasury dictate policy and strategy.
We're going to need a smaller violin.
Did it ever occur to you that as an MP, this is a problem you ought to have been engaged in solving?
If there's evidence on the public record that you have been in any way concerned with our economic malaise - let alone active in addressing it - I haven't been able to find it.
Your constituents look to you to represent their interests. They have very little time for making Britain a unicorn-tech giant when their stagnant wages mean they had more buying power in the year 2000 than they have today, in spite of 24 years of striving, sacrifices and degrading loyalty to the corporate hellscape.
Without an equitable, functioning economy, everything else is utterly irrelevant. Look at Maslow's hierarchy of needs. A majority of people in the UK cannot meet their basic needs. And you don't seem to care enough to even pretend that is important to you.
Shall we look at the NHS next? Or the out-of-control immigration? Or the sorry state of the education system? Or the police who clearly operate according to an agenda that is irrelevant to 99% of the people in this country? Or the other key issues, none are which are concerns about whether we can make the UK a world leader in generating eco-friendly energy from unicorn flatulence?
My heart bleeds, George. It really does.
PS Since March 2020, I've been paying more than £2k a month on my mortgage, because as soon as your band of clowns shutdown the economy, it was obvious that what is happening now was going to happen, so I wanted to get as much of it paid off as I could before the reckoning came.
Thanks for sharing George.
You’ll be missed in the corridors of power but I rather fear that those that succeed you are going in the wrong direction. The word polycrisis has become somewhat ubiquitous but it hints at the enormity and complexity of the global and climate related challenges we face. I fear we no longer have the leadership to address these challenges, but we must. The short term quest for political popularity can lead to decisions that are diametrically opposed to the more responsible, more sustainable commitments that we should making.
Good stuff, George. ManufacturingTV would love to assist. My email address is nick.peters@ukmfgmedia.com. Please do get in touch.
George, in response to your request for feedback - I loved it! You left us all with an enormous cliffhanger...
You’re choice of talking about Albert Einstein was interesting. Why him? You could have chosen so many others, Bohr, Boltzmann, Heisenberg or my personal hero Richard Feynman. But what singles Einstein out was his ability to capture the imagination of the whole world. Partly his physics, partly his appearance but mainly his ability to communicate.
I so hope that you continue this George, because now that we don’t have Tomorrow’s World on TV we need great communicators to divert attention from the dross that exists elsewhere in political debate to this existential mission.
I wonder based on Einsteins view of insanity what we need to change. Do our stories need to change to consider our inward journey & challenge rather than an outside evil when we meet a challenge ? How could we learn from the ancients ? Is it OK to stream questions , might these questions hold the answers ? Are we reaching a new enlightenment where we operate in the sweet spot of our ikigai ? Can we operate outside the bounds of the provable head and go with the gut. Can a collective feeling be enough ? Is participation enough to change behavior ? How can we optimise for Charles greens trust equation ? Can we pivot on a single word to a better path of exploration ? If patents come from accidental mistakes can we create haphazard experimentation in a safe virtual world ?
Well done George - one of the reasonable Tories - I have grabbed the opportunity to join you since I do believe that the UK needs "concensus Govt" adversarial where the opposite party deliberately undoes even the good that the previous Govt did cannot be good for the people.
I have also attempted many times to gain your interest in two issues Our New Hydrogen Concept and also that Breakthroughs do not come from companies which have loads of cash to lobby parliament -- what is the point of Innovate UK "Funding Competitions with a set Criteria" it clearly disenfranchises "new innovation in any field" "Need a Call which is Open to True innovation TRL1 to TRL 3 " Ideation to a concept on paper - funding technology above that level is close to being Corporate Welfare - the difficulty we have is that existing "Competitions " takes up so much time and does not help the new innovation - having a criteria for Hydrogen actually blocks true innovation -as I can testify - by the time new innovation reaches funding and start on initial modelling the Chinese have a prototype .
There is I feel a need for a "Innovation Road show type structure - No I do not mean a TV show - but involve Universities and local business to uncover new innovation which is stuck in death valley -
I have a recent email from DfT Office for Zero Emissions Vehicles -- "the direction for Hydrogen has been decided -we cannot fund a disruptor since we have funding has been allocated and businesses have made investments "--- my take on a one page email.
Office for Zero Emissions Vehicles should have been all over new hydrogen innovation with potential to produce its own fuel --which would be onboard the EV -- Grid Free Zero emissions House -
e-aircraft etc.
Totally agree - Global Heating and its cause has to be removed from politicians with links to the Fossil Fuels industry -- anyone holding shares or receiving funding or any financial assistance = Vested interest -
All the best with this venture George - the UK -- EU and the World needs to be on the same track.