BP is slashing 8,000 jobs as Labour’s Net Zero crusade piles pressure on oil and gas firms. The cuts include 4,700 staff and 3,000 contractor roles, driven by Ed Miliband’s push to wind down North Sea oil production and ramp up renewables. Labour’s beefed-up windfall tax on energy profits isn’t helping either. So much for lofty promises of boosting jobs…
Meanwhile, Miliband has admitted heat pumps might never be cheaper than gas boilers, admitting yesterday:
“We can say to people you need to get a heat pump, not a gas boiler, potentially, at some point in the future. But I’m very wary of saying we’re going to stop people having gas boilers at a point when we can’t guarantee heat pumps are going to be cheaper for people.”
Despite this, Labour snuck a “boiler tax” through Parliament last night, fining manufacturers who don’t sell enough heat pumps, likely adding £120 to the cost of a new boiler. Net Zero short-circuiting the economy…
Speaking on Times Radio, former Home Secretary David Blunkett spoke about overdiagnosis of mental problems:
“Let’s distinguish those who are really severely mentally ill, diagnosed with things that require prolonged medical and diagnostic treatment. My wife and I talk about this a lot, because she’s a retired GP, about the fact that you can be sad without being ill. You can be momentarily depressed because your boyfriend or girlfriend’s just thrown you and you’re not mentally ill. You can even have mild issues, which can be dealt with with the right kind of support, but it doesn’t make you mentally ill. So we’ve got a real task, I think, to get the psychology, if you like, of this over. But there are things where you definitely need medical intervention, and there are other things where you need good friends, you need good connectivity, and you need a job.”