Another one who thinks the response to a global shortage of something which makes it more expensive is to subsidise people to buy more of it. Truly British politics is blessed with genius.

Apparently it’s National Pet Day…so here’s Donald Trump with one of his faves.

*embroidery I intend to spend months dying on this hill.

Bikes don't do this.

Some amazing stories, recorded on the traffic free path, with the communities who have built them. And more to follow, as I launch my rural path campaigners’ toolkit early next week. find the audio recordings here: lauralaker.substack.com/p/hear-my-po...

The French government has announced the measures of its plan to accelerate electrification: - a ban on gas boilers in new houses from the end of 2026 - increased support for replacing old heating with heat pumps - 100 regions will pilot comprehensive heat transition plans to phase out gas by 2030

The Telegraph just gave a convicted criminal a two-page spread to explain why he's pumping £4 million into Reform UK. They tucked his criminal record away in the small print. So as a former financial crime specialist I’ll do their job for them👇

Science is good. We should fund it.

Britain is now better insulated from gas price shocks than it was during the 2021–2023 energy crisis thanks to a buildout of solar and wind – which helped cut gas generation 🧵 ember-energy.org/lat...

This is definitely worth your time - how the international Right links up via Orban, where weasels like Matt Goodwin get their cash - and why a loss for Orban could substantially weaken the right-wing mouthpiece industry here in the UK.

Clean, safe, cheap, renewable energy that you don't have to fight deadly wars or destroy the environment to get. Good for wildlife, too, when done properly. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

On the one hand, they don't fit on European roads and they have impressively terrible fuel efficiency. On the other hand, they are just very badly made and designed vehicles.

We must get off the fossil fuel rollercoaster. I have lived through 3 oil shocks in my life; these cause recessions, inflation & huge instability across the globe. This week I've written for the Hounslow Herald about why we need to get off this rollercoaster. hounslowherald.com/ruth-cadbury...

From.the latest @willhaycardiff.bsky.social newsletter. No surprise on the Reform section, but horrific if they win even half the parliamentary seats they are currently projected to... open.substack.com/pub/willhayw...

I think everyone would agree that the police and MPs shouldn’t be shoplifting.

At a time when everything seems bad, here’s a bit of good news. In 1991, lithium-ion batteries cost around $9,200 per kilowatt-hour — 33 years later, they cost just $78. This helps us move towards electrification of transport and energy storage in homes ourworldindata.org/battery-pric...

Jeremy Corbyn was quite rightly slammed for the people he shared platforms with. I am immensely confident the same standards will not be applied to Reform’s policy chief. The hypocrisy is off the charts but entirely baked in.

Notes from the much larger and more significant war: in March Russia gained no net territory in Ukraine, and lost more soldiers than it was able to replace.

Now is a good time to ramp up production of fertiliser from clean electricity, water and air. Good for climate and food & energy security. (And yes, I know it won’t come in time for the current crisis, but more will come and it has to be defossilized anyway). www.theguardian.com/world/2026/a...

Another reason why @pollybillington.bsky.social is right that the UK Government should organise a global energy summit.

The remarkable value of local journalism demonstrated here in the reporting of this mass purchase of hundreds of freeholds, leading to a police investigation and now an arrest on suspicion of fraud and blackmail. (NB: caution in commenting on the live case).

And all at historically low borrowing costs…Osborne hated green support, given apparently zero understanding of high up front installation costs followed by cheap energy. They then flogged off the Green Investment Bank to Macquarie in 2017… A staggering lack of strategic thinking across the board…

🚲 LCC's campaign Streets for Cycling is calling on local election candidates to make cycling in your borough safe everywhere and fun for everyone! 👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 🧑‍💻 Email & ask your candidates to pledge to build a safe local cycle network today action.lcc.org.uk/streets

So, I would recommend reading Chris's piece, which makes a number of sensible points, but I don't end up agreeing with him that this is not political? The choice to ban onshore wind was political. Throttling heat pumps was political. Closing gas storage was political. www.ft.com/content/c8bd...

Saudi Arabia, Russia and others yet again blocking progress on climate science ... > IPCC: ‘Frustrating and disappointing’ meeting leaves AR7 timeline in deadlock #climatecrisis @carbonbrief.org www.carbonbrief.org/ipcc-frustra...

UK greenhouse gas emissions are now down 54% since 1990. They fell 2% last year. It's something the country doesn't boast about enough. Yes, some of it is switch from industry to services. But the biggest reductions are from changes to electricity supply. 👇 www.gov.uk/government/s...

The scientific consensus is that surface warming is linear in cumulative carbon emissions--there is no evidence of any "tipping point" behavior in global surface temperature (though some climate subsystems e.g. ice sheet may exhibit threshold behavior): www.livescience.com/planet-earth...

Cartoon by @andertoon.bsky.social

The Dutch energy supplier NextEnergy is offering its customers a free 2 kWh plug-in battery. The (4-year) monthly lease is €20.83, with guaranteed yearly savings of €250. www.nextenergy.nl/smart-home/p...

I noticed the UK government's estimate of CO2 from future AI data centres was implausibly low. I asked for the methodology underpinning the analysis, but got nowhere. When I wrote an article about it they just... deleted the analysis. Now, @adamvaughan.bsky.social has covered this for the Times.

🔴Kemi Badenoch Campaigns For North Sea Drilling at Company Owned by Oil and Gas Executive Who Donated £250,000 to the Conservatives The Conservative party has also taken millions of pounds from funders and directors of anti-Net Zero lobby groups bylinetimes.com/2026/03/30/k...

One of the country's finest libraries of books on town planning and housing policy - the Harry Simpson Memorial Library, currently located in Wisbech - is at risk of being pulped. Please publicise and support the campaign to save it. davemnt.wordpress.com/2026/03/26/a...

Harsh, but…

Absolutely. This.

A lot of politicians can pursue bad policy that is good politics, or good policy that is bad politics, what sets Kemi apart is that she pursues bad policy that is also bad politics.

Kemi Badenoch admits that her plan to expand drilling in the North Sea, whilst scrapping Net Zero plans, probably won't make a direct difference to what people pay. "The drilling isn't going to go directly onto people's bills" she tells the BBC

It’s just so stupid on so many levels. The *fundamental* problem is that the world has less oil. We need to use less to account for that. Making petrol a fraction cheaper doesn’t help with the real issue, costs the government money and does very little for households.

There is an imagined working class, that largely no longer exists and a modern working class that the political class rarely interact with outside of service provision.

Not as egregious as free specs, suits, concert tickets, etc., obvs.

First reported by us exclusively at @financialtimes.com in January: The Trump administration has indicated to Ukraine that US security guarantees are contingent on Kyiv first agreeing a peace deal that would likely involve ceding the Donbas region to Russia… www.ft.com/content/8ca0...

historic moment with potentially enormous ramifications: Meta and Google found liable in landmark legal case that social media platforms are designed to be addictive to children, opening up the tech giants to penalties in thousands of similar claims filed around the US www.ft.com/content/d3d8...

America's reliance on oil has created a self-inflicted affordability crisis. The solution? Investing in clean energy.

Must read. A military strategy guy writes: “There is a frequent mistake, often from folks who deal in economics, to assume that countries will give up on wars when the economics turn bad.“

The 'green' fuel market supplying Europe with used cooking oil, appears to be rife with fraud. An investigation by SVT has uncovered that the world's largest producer of biofuel for aviation, Neste, is likely receiving virgin palm oil instead of recycled frying oil.

Bonkers.

The number of displaced persons in Lebanon is now over a million. 20% of the population, roughly, is unable to sleep their home tonight.

How can this go on for another 3 years?

Gas only sets Spain's electricity price 15% of the time. When gas costs spike it barely registers on the electricity bill. In countries like Italy and the UK gas sets the price 90% of the time. The difference is enormous. I spoke to @politico.com about this. www.politico.eu/article/spai...

Every Accusation is a Confession….