By Professor John Robertson OBA
From the Telegraph, yesterday:
Britain importing record amounts of electricity from Europe – The UK warned its growing dependence on imports leaves it at risk of outages. Britain importing record amounts of electricity from Europe. According to data published by the National Energy System Operator (Neso), net imports totalled 26.3 terawatt hours from January to September – a new record for the UK. That beat the previous high of 24.6 terawatt hours reached three years ago.1
From the UK Government in September 2024 – In 2008, the first year of SNP Government in Scotland, 8.7TWh were transferred from Scotland to England with only 0.3TWh coming the other way. By 2022, it was 19.5TWh going south and only 0.4TWh coming back. From France to England in 2008, it was 13.5TWh but by 2020 it was only 2.7TWh rising to 15.6TWh in 2023.2
Sources:
- https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/11/02/britain-importing-record-amounts-of-electricity-from-europe/#:~:text=According%20to%20data%20published%20by,hours%20reached%20three%20years%20ago.
- https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/66f422f5c71e42688b65ec20/ET_5.6_SEP_24.xlsx#:~:text=Scotland%2DEngland’s%20net%20transfers%20doubled,1%202011%2C%20at%200.7%20TWh.
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Talking-up Scotland 'Albatraz' 
Thank God for Better Together ! If it wasn’t for the generous English consumers using all our energy we would be up to our necks in surplus electricity , wouldn’t we?
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Scotland in surplus and nearer the source pays more. About time Scotland paid less for it.
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Ah but! It’s the NATIONAL Grid and you know it’s not Scotland’s energy is it? It’s always been take, take, take in this unequal Union. Even worse it’s not even the UK Treasury benefitting from renewable generation, it’s the Giant Energy companies who have been allowed to overcharge and gouge excess profits ever since 2021
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I remember, some years ago now, an Andrew Marr documentary for BBC about the design of the UK energy infrastructure and how in an energy crisis the grid will direct energy towards the South East of England. The excellent digital graphics showed Britain with London and the South East brightly lit with Wales, the north and also, of course, Scotland in darkness.
We make it; they get it for free. Then they sell back to us what they don’t need at top price.
Scotland is like looking out your living room window and watching the guys who just burgled your House divvying up all your stuff in your garden.
If I lived in England, I’d love this union too.
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“As ‘Britain’ imports record amounts of electricity from Europe, England gets as much from Scotland as it buys from France”
Yet apparently with Scotland, we are told, there is an endless take take take according to all of the various UK governments , who then also tell us in Scotland and the rest of the UK , that all they do as a UK government is give give give to us in Scotland. (while failing to note what we, Scotland, consistently give give give to them the UK government).
Yesterday MSM Monitor posted a tweet together with a video attached to his tweet, which was Keir Starmer, when in Scotland prior to the GE, promoting GB Energy and at the end there was a Q & A session with journalists.
MSM Monitor tweeted:
“During the election campaign Keir Starmer came to Scotland and told everyone that GB Energy plans were already at an advanced stage and promised people would see results within a year. He’s got until July 2025. Bookmark this folks”
So the video MSM Monitor linked to his tweet had some of the questions asked by journalists and the answers given by Keir Starmer.
One question asked ““You said today that you want to get working on Great British energy within months. Can you be more specific and confirm to voters if it will be fully up and running within a year” ?
Starmer’s response was:
“Look on GB Energy we can get going on this straight away and set it up. We’ve got advanced plans to do so and we will certainly after the first year be in a position to show the real difference that it is capable of making and that’s why our plans are not going to be begun on day one of a Labour government . They’re already begun. What I want them to do in the first year is implement it”
However so far it seems all is not well with these so called GB Energy advanced plans because so far we have discovered that contrary to what was pledged prior to the GE there is now seemingly a serious lack of planning as in a “Change” of many of the so called advanced plans connected to GB Energy.
We were told , with huge fanfare, that the GB Energy HQ was to be based in Scotland.
However it was not decided where in Scotland, as the supposed advanced plans on GB Energy had not got to the stage of deciding where to base the actual HQ, as in which city it would be based in within Scotland. (How hard would that have been to decide, that is for it to have caused such a delay in it being announced ?).
Even in the King’s Speech Labour had still not decided which city in Scotland the so called HQ of GB Energy was to be based, as the King in his speech, only noted it was to be in Scotland.
In fact we had to wait until September before we were told it was to be in Aberdeen.
However we were also told that the Chairman of GB Energy was to be based in Manchester and not in the so called HQ that Labour said was to be in Scotland.
(He, the Chairman, will apparently make visits to the ‘HQ’ in Aberdeen, that’s nice of him, and we in Scotland are supposed to see that as perfectly normal and so also be so grateful to Labour for bestowing us with a so called Scottish HQ that seemingly is nowt more than a nameplate exercise as opposed to an actual HQ).
So the big boss of GB Energy, as in the Chairman, is not going to inconvenience himself (or lower himself) to actually be based in a Scottish city that Labour are pretending is the actual HQ of the whole GB Energy company they created.
(The same one they created and based their pretend HQ in , just as an excuse to steal more of our Scottish resources, as in the huge capacity and potential of renewable energy Scotland has, which they Labour will use (plunder) for other parts of the UK (mostly England).
Also previously the original amount quoted for this so called Labour “Green energy revolution in the UK” (and part of what I assume was also within the advanced plans) was an amount being touted as £28 billion for green projects which was then shelved (as in something else ditched by Keir Starmer ) and so was then reduced to a far far lesser amount.
Now the Financial Times have stated in a headline that:
“GB Energy gets just over £100 million over 2 years in the budget despite the former £8 billion pledge” which the Financial Times then states “raises questions over state owned company’s ability to help meet 2030 target for decarbonisation”.
So much of the above all begs the question:
‘What exactly are these “plans that were supposdley at an advanced stage in relation to GB Energy’ ?
Or will this be yet another ‘sacrificial lamb’ policy also at the altar of excuses that Labour are making in them blaming the previous Tory UK government for preventng them from fulfilling all that they formerly (supposdley) pledged to voters.
So we , the UK public and the UK, then only get a half baked GB Energy policy from Labour. (as well as other half baked policies and also a continuation of former Tory policies remaining too).
So why then pledge and promise so much prior to the GE when really you must have known, as the official opposition, the impact Tory policies , especially Brexit, was having upon the UK economy.
A Brexit that you too as a party are endorsing and continuing with, yet in doing so , you as a party are failing to admit to the UK public that much of the ‘financial black hole’ you are currently moaning about is one that exists in the UK mainly because of Brexit.
Will more Scots now finally acknowledge who the real Labour party really are prior to 2026 , as in them being a political party who are not to be trusted or believed.
As any fool or charlatan can promise and pledge to do everything, be everything to everyone yet it is only real fools who choose to keep believing them time and time again, only then to then feel even more foolish, in that they were , yet again , deceived by the same fools and charlatans who fooled them many many many times before.
Keep Labour out in 2026 or reap what you will have sown, is a warning that should be shouted out to all Scots, and also to others who choose to live within Scotland as well.
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The next Labour con will be that Scotland needs nuclear power stations for when the wind doesn’t blow so that we can continue to export power to England.Will they do this prior to the 2026 elections however?
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Murray already dusted off that fairy for an appearance following his appointment, that becalmed state befalling the British Isles never once noted in the centuries old annuls of the royal navy….
What I find particularly galling of Murray et al promoting nuclear, is that we already know a hefty chunk of wind generation is switched off or on reduced output in Scotland (and elsewhere) – Greg Jackson (Octopus) has been banging on about this for months, infamously suggesting Scotland should get free electricity as the producer is being paid anyway… In short, despite all the generation records already broken, what is already built is producing nowhere near capacity.
Why no journalist or politician has had the wit to ask of Murray how many more have to be switched off to accommodate just one of his mini/micro/pico nuclear installations is most bewildering…
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